


(you're a) legendary artifact

by karasun013 (Amiria_Raven)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: College AU, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Minor Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Minor Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Romance, Slow Burn, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, hqbb2018, online game au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiria_Raven/pseuds/karasun013
Summary: Kei isn’t quite expecting Kuroo Tetsurou when the Crows team up with one of Hinata’s friends in Final Haikyuu Quest, but Kuroo Tetsurou is what he gets. And after that first raid together, all the parts start slowly falling into place, from questing and duels with Kuroo to accidentally running into him outside of the game when all Kei really wanted was to meet up with Akaashi to buy the new expansion together. And somehow, Kei can’t really bring himself to mind when they end up meeting up not-so accidentally from then on.





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This has been a TRIP and I'm actually still not done, so I'm posting chapters 1 and 2 and y'all will have to wait a little bit for part 3, since I'm still working on it. Links to the wonderful art by 0rchidd on tumblr will be at the bottom (as well as the link to 0rchidd's page itself) so stick around for that!

“ _C’mon, Stingyshima, you’ve been wanting to try this raid for a month!_ ” Hinata’s voice crackled through the headset, and Kei grimaced. He hated when even _Hinata Shouyou_ could read him like a book. “ _That legendary circlet that was on the loot list they released has your name written all over it and you know it!_ ”

“ _You did say you wanted it, Tsukki,”_ Tadashi, the traitor, piped up in party chat, and Kei groaned out loud. Too many people were suddenly able to read him, and it was unnerving. What had happened to the high school Hinata who had actually kept a bit of a distance? Middle school Tadashi, who knew when to keep his mouth shut to prevent earning Kei’s wrath?

“ _Who cares what Tsukishima wants, what’s in it for us?_ ” Kageyama’s voice was deadpan. “ _There’s that ring that’s for the Arcanist class that I want._ ”

“ _Ooh, what about that really cool dagger for the off-hand that’s a Rogue-only item? I want that one!”_ Hinata chimed in, laughing. “ _Hey, Tadashi, you want the bracers that improve accuracy, dexterity, and the crit chance for ranged weapons, right?_ ”

“ _Yeah, that’s the drop I was looking at_ ,” Tadashi agreed easily.

“Even if we play with Kenma again, that’s only five,” Kei finally spoke up before anyone else could speak again. “This is a raid where we need a party of ten.”

_“That’s why we’ll invite Kenma’s group, duh!”_ Hinata laughed, and Kei watched Hinata’s avatar jump around on the screen like a preteen playing for the first time. “ _Kenma’s normal party has six members and they usually queue and wait for it to randomly choose the last four, but if we join up with them we’ll have a full raid group! And the character classes we’ve got are pretty compatible with theirs, too.”_

Kei pulled up the loot list on his second monitor while Hinata continued to ramble about some of the other items that they might be able to use and clicked on the third item down. The icon’s background was a blue that denoted its legendary class, and the silver circlet pictured wasn’t anything to scoff at.

* * *

 

“ _Hey, everyone’s here now, right?!_ ” Hinata asked, voice loud and bright as usually. A chorus of answers sounded from several unfamiliar and familiar voices alike, and Kei still kind of wondered what had made him agree to this. The _Loot List_ tag on his bookmarks bar, however, was enough of an answer.

“ _Hey hey hey!”_ one of the unfamiliar voices cried out, laughing. Kei’s first thought was _oh no, not another loud one_ , but he kept it to himself. “ _I’m Bokuto, but you guys can call me Bo!”_

The human knight on screen, SirOwlsALot , was jumping in place. Kei figured it must be _Bokuto_ , whoever he was. One of the people that Kenma had brought along, for sure. But Hinata swore by Kenma’s team and their abilities, and Kei, however begrudgingly, trusted Hinata’s judgment enough to believe in them. That, and he couldn’t see Kenma playing a raid with a team he didn’t trust to be able to do the job.

“ _He’s SirOwlsALot,”_ another voice sighed. “ _My avatar is Fukuro, the elementalist. My name is Akaashi. It’s nice to meet you all.”_

_Owls_ , Kei thought. _Lots of owls_. But he trailed his eyes across the rest of his new teammates and found no more owl-related names. He wondered, briefly, if they had joined Kenma’s team as a duo, but didn’t care quite enough to ask about it.

“ _Awesome!_ ” Hinata’s voice, excited. “ _I’m Hinata Shouyou! I’m SmolGiant in the game. Super excited to do this raid with you guys!”_

_Gross_ , Kei thought, the corner of his lips quirking up in amusement. There was definitely way too much energy in this chat already, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with an entire raid in such company.

“ _Hey,”_ Tadashi laughed, a little nervously. Kei furrowed his brow a little—even after two years of playing, Tadashi still got nervous when talking to new team members. “ _I’m Yamaguchi, and I’m very unoriginal._ ”

“ _Does that mean you’re the one whose avatar is Yamagucci_?” a voice asked, teasingly. Kei also had to suppress a snicker and focused on the voice instead. It wasn’t either of the new guys that had already introduced themselves, though, so Kei was playing a game with himself to pick out which new character he thought the voice belonged to.

He heard Tadashi groan. “ _Yes, yes it does._ ”

“ _That’s fantastic! I like you already,”_ there was laughter, kind of obnoxious, and then he continued _. “I’m Lev!”_ One of the avatars emoted, just a simple wave. “ _My character is Lyovochka, the Sentinel. My sister Alisa named him for me_!”

“ _You mean she named him_ after _you,”_ someone else drawled. Kei could practically hear him rolling his eyes. He thought, vaguely, that he could get along with this one. “ _Lev’s an idiot but don’t let him fool you. He’s actually pretty good, even though he just picked up the game recently. Anyway, I’m Yaku, and I’m the assassin.”_

_“Kageyama. I’m Crow,”_ Kageyama said stiffly and shortly. He wasn’t being rude—Kei knew him well enough to know when Kageyama was actually being rude—and thankfully everyone took it in stride.

“ _Crow,”_ the last unfamiliar voice snorted a little. “ _Simple. I like that. Anyway, fellow nerds, I’m Kuroo, and I’m also unoriginal.”_

Someone who sounded suspiciously like the newcomer named Lev snorted, and after a second he giggled and managed to spit out, “ _Y’know, like ‘nya’?_ ” 

Kei glanced back to the party list, and saw _Kuronya_ the Sentinel.

_Oh, no_.

“ _It’s nice to meet you guys! Let’s kick some ass!”_ Kuroo interjected as quickly as he could, but the words had already processed. Kei wondered how long Kuroo had been in possession of this game, and what had possessed him to name his character that in the first place. He did, however, decide not to ask.

“ _C’mon, Stingyshima, you’re the last one!_ ” Hinata’s voice cut through his thoughts, and Kei grimaced a little. Starting right in with the stupid nicknames after being in the party for less than ten minutes.

“My avatar is Tsukki,” he kind of regretted letting Tadashi’s nickname get to him, back before Tadashi even had the game. “I’m Tsukishima,” he paused again and debated, momentarily. Eventually, rather than saying some pleasantry like _nice to meet you_ , he opted for, “Let’s get this over with.”

“ _Don’t pay attention to him, he just doesn’t play well with others_ ,” Hinata snorted, and a few of the newcomers laughed with them. “ _He’s actually really excited for this and wants one of the legendary drops, so don’t let him fool you._ ”

He heard Tadashi snort, but he wouldn’t have picked it out if not for the muffled, “ _Sorry, Tsukki_ ,” that crackled across in an amused tone.

Kei rolled his eyes and sighed, but heard Hinata continuing to banter easily with Kenma’s friends. He wondered idly if Hinata had played with these guys before, since he’d been friends with Kenma for a while, but he didn’t quite care enough to ask outright. Instead, he busied himself with inspecting their gear, starting with _Lyovochka_. Despite hearing the player behind the Sentinel making a fool of himself with Hinata and Kageyama, Kei found himself pretty impressed.

He made the rounds through the rest of the group, and begrudgingly acknowledged that all of Kenma’s group was pretty geared up. He expected it from Kenma, but he hadn’t anticipated everyone else to be so meticulously put together.

“ _Is everyone ready?_ ” Kenma’s voice finally piped up, and Kei assumed that he’d been checking everyone’s gear too. It was the kind of thing Kenma would do.

Various sounds of assent rang through the voice channel, and a few opted to type in-game Kei was one of these, typing quickly and choosing not to add to the din in someone else’s headphones. Hinata had no qualms about shouting on any given day, and this was no different, despite the extra six people.

There was a chime, and a message scrawled across his screen.

_Your Party Leader has chosen to enter the dungeon. Are you Prepared?_

He thought of the legendary circlet on the rewards list, and the items he’d enchanted to increase his luck in the hopes that it would drop on the first try, and clicked _Yes_. He was as prepared as he could be, and they wouldn’t have to queue up for a random party. That was worth something, at least, and since they’d occasionally teamed up with Kenma and a few of the others, they’d have a little more synergy than a random group.

“ _Who’s taking so long to accept?_ ” Hinata whined. Kei scoffed at him and glanced over to the rewards list he had pulled up on his second monitor again, looking at the stats.

_Those pauldrons would really help Kuroo_ , he mused, hovering over them and attempting to tune out the chatter in the background. With Hinata’s loud voice, he still caught that Lev had apparently typed in chat that he had to run to the bathroom and had yet to return.

“ _Maybe he had to take a shit_ ,” Kageyama observed bluntly, and Hinata groaned. They started bickering, and Kei sighed.

There was a room in the raid with two simultaneous bosses. One had a probability of dropping a staff that would be a good upgrade for the elementalist—Akaashi, wasn’t it?—and a sword that dropped from the other that would work for the excitable one. Bokuto, he recalled. Kei took a moment to ponder the likelihood that both would drop, concluding it was unlikely before trying to figure out what Kenma and Yaku might be after. He already knew what his normal group wanted, after all. Kenma was probably after that amulet, which was the rarest drop after the circlet Kei himself wanted.

Lev returned just then, spouted a loud apology, and the game kicked into the raid loading screen.

Kei didn’t need to know that he’d actually had to take a shit.

Kenma sounded a little irritated when he interrupted the bickering between Kageyama, Lev, and Hinata over Lev’s bowel movements, and gave a few short instructions. Don’t run ahead, don’t aggro too much, and let the Sentinels and the Protector draw the aggro before attacking the mobs. Standard procedure, but some idiots—the quietly bickering trio, for one—probably needed the reminder.

“ _Oh, hey hey hey, did you guys see the forums?!_ ” SirOwlsALot chimed in. “ _It looks like if you’re not careful with the third boss, he can separate you from your party! A lot of groups have wiped because of it, apparently. What if I get separated from Akaashi?!_ ”

“ _Then you’ll die and someone will rez you or something, Bo,_ ” the avatar for Kuronya emoted, patting SirOwlsALot on the shoulder. “ _Or you’ll get kicked from the raid and have to re-enter and catch back up._ ”

“ _What?!_ ” Hinata and Lev both exclaimed, and Kei flinched. He heard a hiss.

“ _Lev, I swear to—_ ”

“ _Sorry, Yakkun! But seriously, is that true?!_ ”

Kei, who had opened a new tab on his second monitor as soon as Bokuto had mentioned it, was currently skimming the information on their raid. _Seijou Cavern_ had a lot of posts in the forum already for being a fairly new raid, but he’d found the official thread fairly easily despite that. Probably because _Fantasy Haikyuu Quest_ ’s forum moderators were good about pinning the relevant threads.

“Look’s like it’s true,” he pushed his glasses up his nose, frowning at the screen.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Kenma agreed. “ _Just watch out. It’s been a week and no one’s decided for sure what action the boss takes before the attack. Some say it’s a tail attack though, so just keep an eye on him when we get there._ ”

“ _C’mon, Kenma, lighten up!_ ” a laugh sounded, warm and grating on Kei’s ears. _Kuronya_. “ _What’s the worst that could happen?_ ”

* * *

 

“This is entirely your fault, Kuroo,” Kei scowled at his screen. The avatar Tsukki sat on the ground, munching on some jerky from his inventory, while Kei watched the vital stats from the rest of the party still fighting the boss. Kuronya was standing nearby, eating something to regain some health.

“ _How is this my fault? It’s a random attack!_ ”

“Who says _‘what’s the worst that could happen?’_ when we’re introduced to the possibility of getting split up?” Kei spat back, looking through his inventory again to see if anything would help. “It’s obviously your fault.”

“ _Shouyou,_ ” Kenma’s voice said, by way of instruction. Or so Kei assumed, since he couldn’t see.

“ _Got it, Kenma_!”

“ _Hey hey hey, Lev, I’ll share some of the aggro with you since the others are gone!_ ” Bokuto’s voice rang out, and Kei glanced over at the party list. Bokuto was a Knight, so after Sentinels and Protectors, he was the best suited for tanking. Kenma voiced the agreement, and Kei heard him tell Bokuto which mobs to try to aggro.

Kei groaned.

“ _Lighten up, Tsukki! We just gotta find everyone again. No big deal_.”

_No big deal_? Kei took a deep breath to avoid lashing out. He didn’t see how losing the two more experienced tanks in the party could be anything short of a _big deal_ , game-wise. The mages in the party were certainly a concern, but Hinata easily did enough damage to pull aggro from anyone but an experienced tank. Kuroo, actually, had done a fantastic job earlier in the fight by instantly regaining aggro as soon as Hinata had pulled it.

The others were in the middle of a boss fight that was most definitely harder without them, and even though Kei really wanted to snap at Kuroo, they could probably do without a separate argument interfering with Kenma’s instructions and whatever else. So he bit his tongue and waited.

“ _Let’s go this way_ ,” he heard, and then watched as Kuronya started walking towards an open cavern ahead of them.

“Why should I follow you?” Kei snapped before he could manage to bite his tongue.

“ _Uhhh, maybe because there’s only one way out of this hole he knocked us in?_ ”

“ _Buuurn!”_ he heard Hinata snicker, and realized that everyone else’s health was rising steadily. There were other voices joining in, snickering, and Kei felt as though his scowl would be permanently fixed to his face.

It was worse when he looked around and realized that Kuroo was right.

There was a breathless, “ _Sorry, Tsukki_!” and Tadashi’s name filed itself higher on his grudge list. Slot three, he thought, right after the tied idiot duo that had fallen to second behind Kuronya the Sentinel.

“ _Does the map give you any idea how far away you are?_ ” Akaashi’s calm voice cut through the snickers before Kei could plot anything more than a cold shoulder.

“ _Nah, just tells us which direction to go to find you guys._ ”

The mini map in the upper right did, indeed, give a little glowing gold indicator with the tiny text ‘Party’ next to it. The map outside of the small space they’d fallen into was dark and unexplored, and Kei heaved a sigh.

“Let’s just follow it and try to make it back. Try not to pull the next boss without us.”

“ _Do you want us to switch to a private chat temporarily so we don’t distract you?_ ” Kuroo chipped in. It was a good idea in theory, Kei supposed, but he didn’t want to admit that where the person who named his avatar _Kuronya_ because he was a black-haired cat person was concerned.

“ _We can just individually mute them on our ends, can’t we?”_ Hinata asked, in that guileless way he had of occasionally saying clever things. “ _So they can hear us, but we won’t have to hear them bickering!!_ ”

Before Kei could comment, scathingly or otherwise, he heard Tadashi snort and remark, “ _You’re one to talk._ ”

“ _Hey—_ ” Hinata began, but Tadashi added more.

“ _Does that mean we can mute you and Kageyama when you start shouting at each other_?”

Maybe he wasn’t on Kei’s total shitlist anymore. Sometimes he forgot how snarky Yamaguchi Tadashi could be when it mattered, but it made sense since they’d been friends for years. Elementary school to college was a long time for anyone.

“ _We’ll do it that way_ ,” Kenma interjected before Hinata could protest any further. How someone like Kenma had made friends with Hinata Shouyou would probably always be a complete mystery to Kei...or maybe not, considering that Kenma had brought Lev, Bokuto, and Kuroo to the raid with him. There was, perhaps, less to question in Kenma’s ability to tolerate idiots than Kei had originally thought.

“ _We’ll just message in the party chat if we want to say anything to you guys, then,_ ” Kuroo agreed easily. “ _Right_ , Tsukki _?_ ”

He put a lot of emphasis on the nickname, and Kei started rethinking several of his decisions. Mostly the one where he’d decided against lashing out at Kuroo and giving the idiot a piece of his mind in some capacity or another.

Instead, he forced himself to agree.

“ _We’ll take a minute to mute you guys before we move on, then,_ ” Akaashi’s voice, probably the new voice that annoyed Kei the least, was still level and calm.

In the meantime, Kei let out a slow breath. Even if the others wouldn’t be able to hear him if he got frustrated with Kuroo now, he could still hear Hinata’s annoying voice and the little jabs between him and Kageyama.

“ _Everyone have them muted_?” asked Yaku shortly, after a few moments of mostly silence. Lev started to whine about how he couldn’t find where to mute others and could only find the option to mute himself and Yaku snarked, “ _Well, you could do that, too, and save us all the trouble of doing it ourselves._ ”

Kuroo started to laugh, and Lev only continued to whine until Bokuto cheerfully piped up with instructions at a mile a minute that Lev asked him to repeat three times.

“ _Yaku is a tiny little kitten!_ ” Kuroo announced suddenly, after a moment, Kei pinched the bridge of his nose, his glasses sliding up a little, and sighed loudly. Kuroo laughed but didn’t explain until after a solid five seconds had passed when he said, “ _Yaku would be threatening to dismember me if he heard that, so they must have all got us muted._ ”

“Why did I have to hear that?” Kei asked no one in particular, but since the only person that could hear him was Kuroo, he should have expected an answer.

“ _Because you’re the only one that can hear me_.”

“I can still mute you, too.”

“ _Aw, Tsukki, I’m hurt_.”

Kei could hear the smile in his voice and just sighed. He guided his character into the next room, beside the annoyance he was stuck with, and chose not to answer. He wasn’t sure he’d be heard over Kageyama and Hinata bickering with each other, anyway. Or over Bokuto’s excited babble over how one of the mobs had dropped a good, rare crafting material.

“ _There are mobs ahead_ ,” Kuroo announced, unnecessarily, as they trekked further into the cave.

“I can see them.”

“ _Just calling out a warning for the wonderfully timid elf that’s trailing behind, is all,_ ” the cat-eared idot cooed back. Kei could _still_ hear the smile—or smirk—in his voice, and he wasn’t really amused. “ _Wouldn’t want my damsel in distress to get scared by the mobs and run away, after all._ ”

“I hate you,” Kei returned, though he was distressed to hear a distinct lack of his true ire in his tone.

“ _Aw, I love you too_ ,” Kuroo tossed back easily, after a brief laugh. “ _They’re a lower level than the small fry on the main route, probably because they anticipate fewer people down here. We can probably take them, just the two of us._ ”

He had already hovered his mouse over one of the mobs, scanning the information available to him, while trying to ignore everything else. He’d just come to the same conclusion as Kuroo and he sighed once more to contain himself. He didn’t even care of Kuroo could hear him, at this point.

_You’re here for the circlet_ , he reminded himself.

Kei tried not to think about how the circlet was the second rarest drop in entire dungeon by percentage.

He also tried not to think about how they might end up wiping and having to restart the raid anyway because they’d been separated from the party. Depending on the abilities and strength of these mobs compared to those on the main path, he and Kuroo could potentially be in trouble. Without knowing the area, it wasn’t like they could just run through and hope for the best, but between the two of them, ability-wise, there wasn’t much healing to be had. Kei knew that Kuroo had the passive _Stalwart_ , which increased his defense when his health was low and was an ace-in-the-hole for several Sentinel tanks in the game, but it could only do so much when there wasn’t an active health regen buff. Kei had _First Aid_ , which he could use on anyone once every five minutes and it automatically restored five percent of their total base health, and he had _Moonlight_ , which had a three second casting time and served as a buff to protect against dark magic and also gave a boost to the effectiveness of healing items like potions and salves.

“We can’t pull too many at once. We don’t have many healing abilities between us, and yours can only be cast on yourself,” he pointed out, glancing back over at his second screen to look through Kuroo’s stats on the FHQ official site again.

“ _Make sure Moonlight’s active before we go in_ ,” Kuroo said in lieu of an agreement. “ _How many potions to you have? I’ve got a whole pouch full, plus my herb pouch has enough for me to stop and craft a few if we need to._ ”

Kei already knew what he had, but he opened his inventory anyway to scan over the five bags. “I’ve got enough for now.,” he had at least seventeen of his usual potion, and nine of the one that was a step weaker. Under normal circumstances, that would be enough, but dungeons were always different. “I’ll let you know if I run low.”

There was a sound of assent, and Kei took that as his queue to rebuff. He started casting _Moonlight_ and watched as Kuronya on the screen ate something else for a temporary boost of some sort. When the icon popped up next to his icon, Kei moved his mouse to hover over it and read that it was a small attack bonus.

“ _Ready_?” Kuroo asked as Kuronya jumped in place a few times.

“Let’s go,” Kei answered simply.

“ _You’ve got a few more offensive abilities than I do, especially with a little bit of range for your spear, so I’ll draw more aggro and you try to take them out. That work for you_?”

He hummed in agreement, and Kuronya dove into action on the screen almost immediately, slashing wide with his axe and then using _Battlecry_ to pull aggro. Kei waited, watched him draw more ire from the mobs, and then used the very basic _Charge_ ability to strike and join the fray. And then he was watching his cooldowns, carefully timing when to use basic attacks versus his abilities, and keeping an eye on their health.

“Kuroo,” he warned, and then a green light outlined his health bar, a little potion icon flashing next to it.

“ _Thanks, Tsukki_.”

He grunted and mashed his 6 key for another attack, finally downing two of the six mobs.

“ _So, Tsukki,_ ” Kei could hear the deliberate clack of keys and clicks of Kuroo’s mouse as he kept the mobs in check. “ _How long have you known Hinata?_ ”

“Small talk? Really?” Kei asked dryly, taking downing a third mob.

“ _Don’t avoid the question! I’m really curious. He seems like the type of person you’d rather strangle than hang out with on any given day, but I could be reading things wrong. You’re not very talkative, after all._ ”

“High school,” Kei supplied as a _Stomp_ from Kuronya took out two more. One left to go, slightly bigger with a little more health than the others. He thought about leaving it hanging there, but Kuroo timed his next attack in perfect sync with Kei’s to take out the last mob before it could let off its powerful swing, and he sighed. “Tadashi recommended this game to me, and then found out from our volleyball club manager that Hinata and Kageyama played, too.”

“ _Aaah, so it was Yamaguchi that convinced you not to kill them_.”

“Him, and our volleyball captain first year. I thought he might kill me if I tried to kill them.”

“ _I didn’t know you guys all played volleyball, too_.”

Kuroo’s health was slowly climbing back up, both natural regen along with the aid of the food he was eating. The fight had been relatively low-risk, all things considered, but he wondered if there were bigger groups ahead of them, or stronger mobs. If that were the case, it would definitely explain why so many of the groups on the forum talked about wiping when they were separated. He still assumed that the mobs down this way were lower difficulty than the ones on the main path, but he couldn’t be sure.

They really had to be careful.

Kei shook his head and tuned back into the conversation. After a brief moment, he finally processed what Kuroo had said.

“‘Too’?” he questioned against his better judgment as he turned once more to his second screen to peer at the forum information about this dungeon. He wanted to see if his assumption about the mob difficulty was true, but no one really had much information about the mobs down on the second path. It seemed some parties had wiped when they were separated, or some had just voluntarily restarted the instance so that they could be a solid group again, and no one had bothered to record anything. He clicked his tongue a little in annoyance before Kuroo’s voice intruded on his thoughts again.

“ _Kenma, Yaku, Lev, and I were all in our high school volleyball club, too. Akaashi and Bokuto were at another school, but we met them through volleyball. So basically, you’re telling me that this entire FHQ party were volleyball players?_ ”

“Looks like it,” Kei drawled, though he felt some of the surprise that Kuroo had voiced.

“ _Haha, what if we played each other or were at the same tournaments and never knew_?” he laughed, and then Kuronya stood up on the screen. “ _Hey, let’s walk and talk, Tsukki!_ ”

“Do we have to talk?” he asked mildly, and Kuroo just laughed. Kei grinned to himself, a little less disgruntled than he put on, and they continued down the path.

 

They did talk, about anything that flitted through Kuroo’s mind. They talked about volleyball, about quests, about a crazy stunt Bokuto had pulled last week, about the time Bokuto had received a volleyball with his _chest_ , and about favorite foods. Kei definitely judged him for his favorite food, and called him an old man. Kuroo whined, of course, but then called Kei a little kid in response to learning that Kei’s favorite food was a type of cake.

These random conversations continued all the way until a mysterious portal they had no choice but to enter dropped them almost right on top of the fourth boss and the rest of the party had to rush in to help. Kuroo made flailing sounds on his end of the chat, and Kei quickly typed into the party chat, _portal dropped us on boss, could use some help_ and then pressed a quick key to pull some of the boss’s attention off of Kuroo.

Kenma gave them a quick verbal, “ _Unmute them now. Kuro, Kei, draw aggro until we get you unmuted_.”

“ _Gotcha_ ,” Kuroo answered brightly, even though they probably didn’t have him unmuted yet.

“You’re an idiot,” Kei announced, activating his _Protector’s Aura_ to draw some attention from the boss and his minions. “Use your _Battlecry_ , Kuroo.”

“ _Already on it, Tsukki!_ ”

“ _Tsukki_ ,” Lev’s tone snickered, and Kei scowled at the screen but bit his tongue. He’d tried a few times to tell Kuroo not to call him that, but in the end he’d given up. It was his avatar’s name, after all, so he _was_ kind of asking for it.

He still silently cursed past Kei for letting Tadashi name his character.

“ _Focus, Lev_ ,” Yaku intervened instead. He could practically hear the ire dripping from the assassin’s tone, and he wondered how quickly Yaku would win in a one on one duel between the two of them.

“ _Glad you’re back, Grumpyshima!_ ” Hinata’s too-loud voice crackled across Kei’s headset, and he groaned. “ _Hey, I heard that! Don’t pretend you’re not happy to see us too, you big ol’ meanie!_ ”

Kuroo started laughing a little, but sobered up when Kenma ordered everyone to focus.

Things went a lot more smoothly when they had their entire party back together. The others had worked on their synergy in order to make it this far without some of their tank power, and Kuroo and Kei had been forced to do the same without any sort of ranged attacker or healer to help them out. They’d learned a bit about sharing aggro so one person didn’t take too much, and they’d also figured out a way to each add small attacks in. Once that fell into place with the rest of the party, it seemed like a simple task.

They powered through the fourth boss with ease he hadn’t expected, and pushed forward to the final boss of the dungeon. Kageyama started bickering with Lev, this time, and Hinata was talking excitedly with Tadashi about the items they’d acquired, even though the dagger Hinata wanted hadn’t dropped.

In the end, Kei didn’t mind the group or the _noise_ that Hinata, Lev, Kageyama, Bokuto, and Kuroo could produce so much since he left with the _Lunar Circlet_ atop his head and a pouch full of rare gems for his crafting.

He didn’t even protest when they suggested another run in two days to try for some of the other drops again, and he might have even accepted Kuroo’s friend request after a few prodding private messages and an offer to duel to test out their new gear. And if Tadashi teased him about that and regained the top spot on his shit list, well, that was another thing entirely.

Kei had never planned on falling in with their other teammates from that instance, but he found himself questing with them a lot more frequently than he would have believed. Bokuto had volleyball practice at his university, and was away more often than he was online, which meant that Akaashi was occasionally looking for someone to run dailies with. Kuroo was on frequently, and when Kenma was doing solos he, as well as Lev, were always excited to form a trio and quest around. Despite the fact that they were all three tanky characters with limited damage or healing abilities, they did alright.

Between those two, Kei ended up being roped into far more of their shenanigans than he cared to admit. Within a week, he’d probably spent at least six hours primarily playing and questing with this new group while Tadashi was busy with his English assignments, or when the idiot duo were too busy with their own volleyball practice. Kuroo, however, seemed to be the most common offender. As soon as Kei logged on it was always, “ _Tsukki, let’s duel!_ ” or “ _Tsukki, let’s do this quest!_ ”

He acted like he was a little more disgruntled than he actually was, but that was nothing new. Kei was pretty prickly around new people, even he could admit that. In fact, it was probably more surprising than anything how easily he’d fallen in with them.

 


	2. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a few numbers are exchanged and Kei learns that it's a small world, after all.
> 
> OR
> 
> Kei might deny it, but he's definitely been making new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is like 13K and I would apologize but...................nah. Enjoy! :D

Kei cursed under his breath, and Kuroo’s stupid laugh sounded muffled in his ears. The asshole.

“Shut up.”

“ _Hey, Tsukki, it was such a close duel! Don’t be so beat up about it._ ” He could hear the grin on Kuroo’s face, and he kind of hated it. This was the third duel in the last two weeks between them, and Kuroo had so far won every single one. He had impeccable timing with some of his blocks and dispels, so it was becoming a little more obvious why Kenma kept him around. “ _You’ll get me next time, for sure_!”

“Stop patronizing me.” Kei’s tone fell flat.

“ _I’m not, I’m not!_ ” he didn’t sound very convincing, but Kei knew, after two weeks of dealing with the man behind the Kuronya avatar, that he really wasn’t trying to. He was just a tease.

“What was your new gear?” he finally asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“ _The duel’s over, you can check now,_ ” Kuroo snorted, and Kei heard a few clicks. “ _Yours was that earring you crafted last the other day, huh? Nice stats on it too_.”

He should have known Kuroo was already checking out his gear. They did this, after they dueled. Without responding, Kei right clicked on Kuronya’s icon and selected the _Inspect_ option to do the same until he spotted the difference.

“I forgot you and Kenma did the duo queue to try for the amulet,” he groaned, looking at the stats. “Kenma enchanted it for you?”

“ _A damn good enchant too, huh?_ ”

“That had to take a lot of millenium dust,” he observed, trying to recall certain things about enchanting from his secondary character, an arcanist named _Shima_. He wasn’t planning on telling Kuroo about that stroke of unoriginality, either. “And an oracle stone too, right?”

“ _It took me three solid days to gather all of it for him_ ,” Kuroo announced, and Kei could practically hear the grimace. “ _I could have bought it all, or let him use his stuff like he said he would, but it takes some of the fun out of it, don’t you think?_ ”

“It’s also probably cheaper to go get it yourself,” Kei mused, still reading the boosts listed on the amulet. It was a hell of an enchant. “People upsell enchanting materials on the auction house, especially oracle stones.”

“ _People upsell all crafting materials, don’t kid yourself._ ”

“True enough.”

Kuroo started to gush some more about his item, but Kei tuned him out just a little when a private message from Akaashi came in.

_[Fukuro]: are we still up for trying that duo queue tonight?_

Akaashi wanted a ring from a separate duo instance than the one that Kenma and Kuroo had done, and Bokuto was busy. He still played volleyball, and practice kept him from being on the game as much as he wanted to be, it seemed.

_[Tsukki]: yeah, i’m still game. what time works for you?_

Kuroo mentioned another crafting material that was hard for him to get, and Kei focused long enough to catch that it was a mineral of some sort that was a drop from the Crow’s Nest quest line.

His private messages lit up again, and he glanced back down there.

_[Fukuro]: how’s 8 sound?_

_[Tsukki]: sounds good._

“ _Hey, I hear you typing over there. What are you looking up? Or who are you talking to?”_

“None of your business.”

“ _Ohoho, but that’s where you’re wrong. See, Tsukki,_ ” Kuroo paused, probably for some sort of dramatic effect. “ _You’re spending time with me, so if you’re being distracted, I want to know by who or by what so I can fight for your honor._ ”

Kei, against his better judgement, snorted. “Please, I can defend my own honor just fine.”

_[Tsukki]: Akaashi I’m blaming you for this_

He sent the message with no context, and the simple question mark Akaashi sent back was probably warranted. Kuroo continued with a spirited list of reasons why he was Kei’s _knight in shining armor_ , for some strange reason, and Kei very carefully remained silent when he explained to Akaashi.

_[Tsukki]: Kuroo heard me typing and won’t stop demanding to know who’s distracting me so he can ‘defend my honor’_

_[Tsukki]: what did i do to deserve this punishment_

_[Fukuro]: you accepted his friend request, didn’t you? I argue that this is entirely your own fault._

_[Fukuro]: that reminds me, though. I’ve been meaning to ask if would you care to exchange numbers?_

Kei blinked slowly at the message, and thought over the last two weeks. He and Akaashi had become friends surprisingly quickly, all things considered, and he enjoyed talking to him. Later tonight would actually be the second duo queue they’d done, as well as a few daily quests.

He didn’t want to think about all the dailies he’d already done with Kuroo. That number was probably higher than it had any right to be.

_[Tsukki]: i can’t believe you’re saying i deserve this punishment_

_[Tsukki]: and yeah, that’s cool with me._

There was a string of digits in his chat next, and he picked up the phone next to his keyboard to type them in and send a message before he tuned back in to Kuroo’s sigh.

“ _We’ve come so far for you to ignore me now, fair one._ ”

“I’m not some damsel in distress,” Kei answered emotionlessly. He’d never admit he was amused by this, even a little bit. He’d never live it down if he did, because somehow _everyone_ would find out about it.

“ _Tsukki. Have you looked at your avatar? You have to be a damsel in need of saving. Tsukki’s too beautiful not to be._ ”

Kei tried very hard not to think about the forty-five minutes painstakingly spent modeling this avatar after himself, mostly at Tadashi’s insistence. He didn’t want Yamagucci to be the only one modeled so closely after the person playing him, after all.

“Are you done yet?”

Kuroo groaned, but relented. “ _Yeah, I guess I am for now. Mark my words though, Tsukki—this isn’t over yet. I’ll prove it eventually, you’ll see. You’re definitely a damsel that needs protecting._ ”

“A Protector that needs protecting. What an achievement,” he rolled his eyes, rather wishing that Kuroo could see it. “This feels like you’re backtracking, though. If I need protecting, why do you keep dueling me? Doesn’t that go against the idea?”

“ _One thing at a time, Tsukki,_ ” Kuroo avoided, his avatar dancing the macarena. “ _Ugh, it’s almost seven-thirty though. I gotta go do my biochem homework, so I need to go. See ya later?”_

“Good riddance,” Kei agreed easily. Kuroo snorted in answer, and since Kei felt a little generous, he offered, “Later.”

“ _Later, Tsukki!_ ”

Their private voice chat fell silent, and Kei sighed. It felt strangely quiet without Kuroo’s pretty incessant babbling there since he’d started to get pretty used to it. What he _wasn’t_ used to, however, was parsing the information that Kuroo had biochem homework, too. Kei hadn’t had any idea that they were studying similar curriculum, even with all the time they’d spent questing together in the last few weeks.

The idea of the seemingly airheaded, obnoxious Kuroo being a biochem student seemed laughable at first, but when Kei thought about it, it didn’t seem so far-fetched at all.

To pull his mind away from thoughts like those, he sent Akaashi a message so he’d have Kei’s information in exchange, and then hopped on his mount, a silver elk, to head to the rendezvous point where he was going to meet Akaashi.

* * *

 

“ _This is absolutely unfair,_ ” Kuroo announced as soon as Kei answered his voice call. “ _I can’t believe you’d betray me like this, Tsukki._ ”

“ _Ignore him, Tsukishima. He’s being dramatic,_ ” Akaashi’s voice added, sounding rather done with the other man.

“When isn’t he?” Kei found his voice, glancing at the online list. Bokuto was also online but marked as AFK, and Lev wasn’t there yet.

“ _Don’t ignore me, Tsukki!_ ” came an expected protest. “ _I need to know what Akaashi did to seduce you away from me! He’s a taken man, you know._ ”

“ _Kuroo, you’re an idiot,_ ” Akaashi drawled before Kei could. No wonder the two got along so well.

“I don’t have a clue what you’re going on about, Kuroo.”

“ _Why didn’t you give me your number?_ ” he demanded then, and Kuronya on the screen crossed his arms. They were in the guild hall, where Kei had spawned in, and he just stared blankly at the messy-haired avatar before groaning.

“Why would I give you my number?”

Akaashi sighed. “ _See why I told you to ignore him? He saw me texting you on lunch break today and hasn’t stopped complaining since._ ”

“This one is actually all your fault then, Akaashi,” Kei accused, recalling the event from the prior week. He filed away the casual mention that Akaashi and Kuroo had been together over lunch breaks, and since he knew that Akaashi was attending university somewhere here in Tokyo, and that he was roommates with Bokuto, Kei now had the knowledge that the three of them all lived in the city.

His new _friends_ , as Tadashi insisted they were, all so close to him and yet so far. He decided not to dwell on that too much, either.

“ _It’s still your fault, for agreeing to exchange numbers in the first place._ ”

“You asked if I wanted to exchange numbers. You’re still the instigator this time, Akaashi,” Kei declared. “I still don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this punishment, but I know that this time it’s not my fault.”

“ _I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I’m not hearing your phone number, Tsukki,_ ” Kuroo announced, as if giving him his phone number was an obvious step for Kei to take. “ _Bo’s gone to get the carryout pizza that Akaashi ordered and Lev is always late, so only Akaashi, who knows your number already, and I will be here to hear it. You don’t have to fear Lev’s incessant spam texts or Bo’s random owl memes._ ”

“ _Yes, but that doesn’t mean you won’t send him too many cat memes,_ ” Akaashi pointed out, as if Kei wasn’t still blaming him for this entire ordeal.

“ _Cat memes are perfection, Akaashi. Just because you and Bo both love owls and are perfect for each other doesn’t mean that owl memes are superior._ ”

“It feels so good to know that I won’t be getting an influx of _either_ type of meme.”

Akaashi snickered so quietly that Kei almost missed it over Kuroo’s exaggerated protests. It only escalated when a text came through from Akaashi that said _take your punishment like an adult, tsukishima_. Kuroo heard the tone and assumed, only partially incorrectly, that Kei and Akaashi were talking about him via text.

 _I hate you_ , Kei texted back. Akaashi, on the voice chat, laughed softly again.

Kei couldn’t wait for the others to arrive so that they could take on the small instance and he could finally try to drown out Kuroo’s whining.

They’d gathered to help Lev prepare for the expansion coming out the following week, where certain class-specific skills were going to gain upgrade options as long as certain class quests had been completed. Lev had a set of quests for this specific instance, and then one more he was planning to do after, and then he’d be prepared for the upgrade to whichever ability he chose. Kei personally already knew he was going to take the upgrade to his _Moonlight_ buff, and that Kuroo planned to take the _Stalwart_ upgrade, but Lev was looking at two other abilities and trying to decide between them.

“ _Ah, it sounds like Bokuto is back with the food_ ,” Akaashi observed coolly. “ _I’m going to go check. We’ll both be back in a few minutes_.”

“ _Yeah, yeah, go eat your pizza and make lovey-dovey faces at each other, I get it,_ ” Kuroo feigned disgust through his amused tone. “ _Tsukki, you should comfort me_!”

“How about not.”

“ _It doesn’t take a lot to make a sad Kuroo smile, y’know. All I need is a few numbers, a string of digits…_ ”

He was still going on about Kei’s phone number. Of course. Kei thought about refusing outright, or about giving in, and weighed the pros and cons. He then opted for another approach, and clicked one of the options next to Kuronya’s icon on screen; the icon to send a duel request. An optional text box titled _STAKES_ opened up and he typed in _phone number_.

“I could put you out of your misery,” Kei offered as he clicked _SEND_ to challenge Kuroo. He paused so that Kuroo had a moment to read and understand, and then finished. “But you’ll have to earn it.”

“ _Ohoho, I can do that!_ ” he laughed, and the countdown to their duel started.

Kei wondered if he’d come to regret this decision. In the last few weeks, they’d dueled seven times, and he had only won twice. Kuroo was deceptively good at the game, and while Kei wasn’t shabby himself, he still had a lot to learn. The two classes had a fair amount of overlap in functionality, though the ability names were different and the effects were slightly altered, and he found himself getting better with each time he fought against Kuronya. He’d won narrowly the first win he’d had, and by a wider margin just yesterday, but he wasn’t naive enough to think he was out of the water.

Odds were that he’d be begrudgingly giving Kuroo his phone number tonight.

He didn’t really have any reason not to, considering that he did quests and talked with Kuroo more than anyone else these days. Tadashi was busy with his studies and the idiot duo were playing volleyball again so their practices kept them away, but even if that weren’t the case he probably would still play with Kuroo. It was more a matter of pride, he supposed, thought that was neither here nor there.

The countdown before their duel reached _3_ and Kei tuned back in completely, hovering over an instant aura buff that would deal a small amount of damage each second to any enemy attacking him. It was always a good opening move, though certain classes had a way around that. Sentinels were one of those, but at least if he got it off quick enough it would do a little damage before Kuroo could counter it since there was no casting time.

And then they began.

 

Eight minutes later, Kei received an emoji-filled text from an unknown number and a _this is kuroo!!_ somewhere in the mix. He toyed with the idea of programming it in as _pita_ for _pain-in-the-ass_ , or just as his username in _Fantasy Haikyuu Quest_ , but in the end he simply opted for saving the number as _Kuroo_.

He didn’t stoop as far as to text him back. Not yet, at least.

It was about then that Lev came online, effectively distracting Kuroo. Kei wondered if he would have whined about Kei’s lack of a return text if it weren’t for Lev, and then wondered immediately after if it was the first and only time he’d ever be thanking Lev’s presence for something.

Kei glanced at the obnoxious message again before sliding down to his conversation with Tadashi to reply to his earlier text—he’d asked if Kei was playing nice with the others while he was stuck doing his English assignments and couldn’t get on.

_To [Tadashi]: Do I ever “play nice”?_

He glanced at the message as it sent, then sighed and sent another that said, _We’re helping Lev get ready for the expansion. Somehow he missed that they were adding skill upgrades as a feature._

After that, he placed his phone face down on the table and listened absently to Kuroo giving Lev some sort of lecture on being a Sentinel and a party tank in the background while he reviewed some of his notes for his upcoming biochem paper. Since he didn’t immediately receive a reply from Tadashi, he knew he must really be busy. He didn’t go to a different university with a better English program just to slack off, after all.

After about ten more minutes, some rustling heralded the return of Bokuto and Akaashi. The party was all present now, so Kei pushed his notes aside and they all dropped back into preparations for the instance.

For a while, he forgot about the addition to the limited number of people he’d given his number to.

That is, until Kuroo sent him an obnoxious good night message after everyone had logged off for the night. Kei had been about to climb in bed, having just brushed his teeth, and stared blankly at the message for a moment. There were at least six cat emojis somewhere in the message, and the text field was opened before Kei could help himself.

 _To [Kuroo]: If you don’t start using your words I WILL block your number_.

He would, too. Probably. Just to preserve his own sanity.

Kei rolled his eyes at himself and responded to Tadashi’s answer from a bit earlier—a rather unbelievable _that’s basically a textbook definition of being nice, tsukki_.

_To [Tadashi]: our textbooks must be pretty different._

Tadashi responded pretty quickly after that, and Kei settled into his bed and continued texting him. It had been a few days since they’d been able to talk in the game because Tadashi was struggling a bit with his current English assignments. He’d had a few texts along the lines of: _you don’t understand, how can so many words sound the same but mean something completely different? It’s literally the same sound but spelled differently. English, WTF._

Kei couldn’t quite relate, but he appreciated the little bit of time texting with his best friend.

Or he did, until Tadashi dropped a bomb that Kei was definitely not expecting and didn’t quite know how to deal with.

_From [Tadashi]: i’m glad you and kuroo are getting along still. i thought you’d kill him at first but he’s grown on you!!! :)_

_To [Tadashi]: have you hit your head recently?_

He imagined that Tadashi would laugh at him for that. There was a very specific way of getting under his skin that Tadashi excelled at, and it usually dealt with situations where his friend thought that Kei needed to shed some of his cold, indifferent layers and embrace some new experience. Apparently friendship with Kuroo was one of those, now, and Tadashi was succeeding in getting under Kei’s skin with just one simple phrase.

_What’s wrong with me?_

The next text that came in was a reply from Kuroo and not Tadashi at all, and Kei stared at the notification for a moment before opening it.

_From [Kuroo]: i guess i can stop using them for now :) well, for the most part :P Night, tsukki!_

Kei studiously ignored the strange tightness in his chest, and tapped out a simple, _go to sleep and leave me alone already._

Tadashi’s return message was just an easy _sorry, tsukki!_ And Kei sighed a little, pinching the bridge of his nose. He tried not to think about how Tadashi would definitely consider him real friends with Kuroo now that the other man had his phone number.

He tried not to think about how he already knew he was friends with Kuroo, too, but neither of those things worked out very well for him as he dismissed the _lol_ notification from Kuroo.

Before Kei could respond, his phone buzzed yet again.

_From [Tadashi]: i really hate to cut this short, but i have a grammar quiz in my first class tomorrow and i want to get up early to cram some more. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, tsukki!_

Kei read over the message twice and promptly decided that Tadashi was probably more prepared than he thought he was, but he’d dealt with this side of his friend since middle school. No amount of convincing him that he’d be fine would work, and he’d just stress himself out if Kei asked him to keep chatting.

_To [Tadashi]: you’ll do fine, Tadashi. go get some sleep._

He sighed and pulled his glasses off his nose, carefully placing them on the table by his bed. His phone followed shortly thereafter, once he was certain that Tadashi wasn’t going to message him back, and then he slid under his covers.

* * *

 

Kei’s first text a few days later was, surprisingly, one from Akaashi and not from Kuroo. Additionally, the contents of his text weren’t anything like their previous conversations about school or the game. Not quite, anyway. It was still about the game.

_From [Akaashi Keiji]: Tsukishima, would you be interested in meeting up at Gamers for the midnight release?_

Akaashi didn’t get on Kei’s nerves like some of the others did, though he had a certain knack for being uncannily observant and that could prove dangerous for Kei’s painstakingly curated stoic image. He’d been rather called out a few times already, now that Akaashi could pick out the nuances in his tone. This idea still came as a bit of a surprise, but after careful consideration, Kei didn’t find himself opposed. He was already planning on being there to pick up his pre-order, and since it would be the first FHQ release he’d been to without Tadashi and the idiot duo, he figured it would be nice to have some amiable company.

He’d tried very hard not to acknowledge that it might feel a little lonely without them there.

_To [Akaashi Keiji]: That sounds like a plan. I have to go there to pick up my pre-order anyway, so I don’t see why not._

Akaashi’s reply led to the _‘how will we recognize each other_ ’ territory, and just before Kei slipped into his history lecture, he acquired a new Facebook friend with curly dark hair and only slightly tanned skin almost as fair as Kei’s. And then he slipped into the lecture hall and up to his seat, and ignored the text from Kuroo that came in right before he put his phone away.

Kei was many things, like a sarcastic ass sometimes and a fairly avid gamer, but he was still studious and took great notes. He didn’t often let his phone distract him in class, so he didn’t actually read the message until an hour after it was sent.

_From [Kuroo]: how come you text akaashi back & not me?_

_For obvious reasons_ , Kei thought to himself, but then opted to _not_ dwell on how he was having trouble coming up with any obvious reasons, aside from the heinous number of emojis in some of his incoming texts over the last few days. Kuroo reminded him of Akiteru in that respect.

Kei sighed, but started typing a suitably scathing response.

_To [Kuroo]: Akaashi doesn’t think it’s funny to overuse emojis in almost every message he sends._

He slipped his phone back into his pocket as soon as Kuroo’s following message came back with a bunch of frowning emojis in the push notification. There was the ‘see more’ option, but he wasn’t sure he trusted it, so he put it off for later. He stopped by a little shop on campus to grab a drink on his way to his mandatory English class and pushed texting Kuroo to the back of his mind.

 

By the end of the day, Kei and Akaashi had decided to meet up around 10 to have a hot cocoa or _something_ for the line. They had preorders, so they didn’t have to worry about purchasing new copies and they reasoned they’d probably be standing outside for around the same amount of time regardless of whether they lined up hours earlier to be first or lined up closer to midnight and ended up near the end of the line.

On the bus back to his apartment, he checked his phone for any other messages from Akaashi, and found another from Kuroo, aside from the one with too many emojis (that did, in fact, say more beyond the preview in the form of ‘what do you have against emojis, tsukki?’, which Kei continued to ignore before responding to one of Akaashi’s texts while he ate).

_From [Kuroo]: fine, fine, i’ll use less emojis, but don’t cry to me when you miss them!!!_

And another:

_From [Kuroo]: tsukki?_

The first message, by timestamp, had been right at the beginning of the biochem lab, and the other near the end. His phone had been muted, as usual, and he wondered how Kuroo was also a student when he seemed to text at all times of day.

_To [Kuroo]: Class. You might have heard of it?_

Before he could put his phone away, he got a text from someone else and groaned when he saw _Hinata_ at the top of his screen. It chimed again with another message from the energetic spiker, and he sighed and opened the message to see what crazy thought Hinata had had today. He hoped it wasn’t another random text about what he’d had to eat today.

_From [Hinata]: hey tsukki r u busy?? Bakageyama n me dont have prctice bc their redoin teh gym floor. boo on them!!!_

_From [Hinata]: but anyway, i already asked tadashi and he’s free so we just need one mroe if u wanna do a run thru that old fukai mori instance again. we can try to get more artifacts or smth??? or you craft stuff u can get the mats there rite???_

Kei weighed the options. He was planning on studying for a while, making dinner, and then doing a few daily quests and studying some more. Alternatively, he could run the five-man instance with them, get some crafting materials he needed to finish one of Tadashi’s birthday presents, and just study and work on his paper afterwards. That sounded like a pretty decent option.

_To [Hinata]: i can ask kuroo or akaashi if they’re free._

He sent the text off before realizing that it was usually Hinata or Tadashi that found their extra party members. It was a mistake, to volunteer to recruit their fifth, and he could feel it.

_From [Hinata]: !!!!!_

_From [Hinata]: look at you, tsukki!!_

_From [Hinata]: all grown up and makin friends!!!_

_From [Hinata]: proud of u :’)_

With a groan, Kei typed out one last message before sliding his phone away, since his stop was next.

 _To [Hinata]: I can always just study instead_.

He felt his phone buzz incessantly a few times but dutifully ignored it until he was back in his apartment and had most of his things under control. He sat down at his computer, some of his biochem notes with him so he could work while everyone got organized, and finally checked his phone.

The first two were Hinata, profusely apologizing and calling him mean and stingy in turn, which was still just as amusing now that they were university students as it had been when they were high school first years. The third message was from Tadashi.

_From [Tadashi]: i heard from shouyou that you’re out there making friends, tsukki! We’re proud of you :P_

Kei groaned. Tadashi already _knew_ that Kei got along with Akaashi and had exchanged numbers, and about Kuroo too, so why was he pulling this? Sometimes Kei really missed when Tadashi hadn’t been able to read him well enough to know how much he could get away with.

 _To [Tadashi]: I trusted you_  

He turned to his computer to boot it up and while he waited those few moments, he shot off a text to Akaashi asking if he was free for the instance. Kei diverted his attention once more to his computer, where he opened the chat application they all used and then opened the game launcher to sign in while he waited for responses.

Tadashi came first.

_From [Tadashi]: sorry, tsukki!_

Kei snorted, and tapped out a nonchalant _no you’re not_ as the character select screen loaded. Absently, he reached to select the avatar for Tsukki, and then checked his phone at the newest chime.

_From [Tadashi]: you’re right, i’m really not._

He noted that Tadashi was the only one in the voice chat so far, and the only one online. Kei joined the chat, waiting for it to connect, even as he received a party invite from his friend. He accepted, adjusting his headset.

“ _Hey, Tsukki!”_ Tadashi piped up brightly, and Kei could practically hear the smile in his tone.

“Hey.”

“ _Oh, by the way! Shouyou and Kageyama still have a little meeting for their volleyball team before they can make it online, and Shouyou said that Kenma was busy. You offered to ask Akaashi or Kuroo to be the fifth?_ ”

Tsukishima Kei appreciated a lot of things about Yamaguchi Tadashi, and one of them was that he always seemed to instinctively know exactly what Kei would ask about next and answer it before Kei could vocalize his inquiries.

“How inconsiderate, asking if I could run this instance without telling me that they’d be late anyway,” Kei drawled sarcastically, listening to the way Tadashi snorted in response. He didn’t have any real frustration at Hinata, sure, but it felt like old times if he at least pretended. “At least he had the foresight to let _one_ of us know that.”

“ _He probably knows you wouldn’t have waited,_ ” Tadashi pointed out, “ _and they won’t be very long, he said._ ”

“Does Hinata actually have a normal human perception of time now? How the times change.”

“ _Oh, hush. He’s not usually late when we make plans, is he?_ ”

That was Tadashi’s mother hen voice. It’s what he got, for being captain  of the volleyball club their third year of high school. He’d learned well from the previous captains, Ennoshita and Daichi. It had really helped him grow into himself, both as far as building confidence and just being willing to show more of who he was.

Maybe that’s what Kei would always miss most about their high school volleyball team, but he probably wouldn’t tell anyone that. Ever.

His phone chimed, and Tadashi hummed.

“ _Is that Akaashi texting back?_ ”

“Let me check.” Kei was already in the process of unlocking his phone to check, after all. And it was a text from Akaashi, thankfully, and nothing new from Kuroo. “He’s on his way back from class, but he says he can join.”

“ _Awesome. I’ll text Hinata so you don’t have to_.”

Yup, Tadashi knew him well. “Thanks for that.”

He just laughed, and Kei turned his attention down to his biochem notes once again, reaching for the orange highlighter in his pen cup. Tadashi started humming to himself, and then Kei heard him mouthing words in that mumbling way one does while typing out a message. He highlighted a sentence and smiled to himself.

“ _You working on homework while we wait?_ ” Tadashi’s voice chimed in a moment later, a shuffling sound telling Kei that he’d placed his phone on the desk.

“Yeah. I have a paper due for the next biochem lab.”

 _“Ah, gotcha. I guess I can study a little for my grammar quiz next class, then_.”

Kei hummed noncommittally, and heard the shuffling of papers and the slight creak of a chair. Tadashi didn’t even have to move to get his study materials, which generally meant that he’d been expecting a bit of a wait, too. Hinata and Kageyama were too predictable, sometimes. Especially where things like this were concerned.

At one point, he heard Tadashi’s phone buzz and then the sounds of Tadashi fumbling with it. He hummed and put the phone back down without saying anything about it, so Kei didn’t pay it much heed. He flipped a page in his textbook to see if there were any other important facts he’d missed, and continued to review his notes. About five minutes later, a chime sounded in the voice chat, and Tadashi let out a startled breath. Kei glanced up to see a recent notification that Fukuro had come online in the game, so he extended a party invite.

“ _Hey, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi. Are we still waiting on the others_?” Akaashi’s voice cracked just a little, but then the connection evened out and everything else came through clearly.

 _“Yeah, they ended up having a volleyball meeting last minute, but Hinata texted me a few minutes ago saying they were headed back from that_.”

 _So that’s what the text was about_ , Kei mused. Aloud, he offered, “You don’t have to stay if you really don’t want to. We can probably snag a random.”

 _“I don’t mind,_ ” was Akaashi’s mild response, before he added, “ _what I do mind is that Kuroo won’t stop whining to me about how you answer my texts but not his._ ”

“ _Wait, are you talking to Tsukki?!_ ”

“I’ve already told him that your texts aren’t filled with emojis. Isn’t that reason enough?”

The sigh on Akaashi’s end sounded an awful lot like one of those sighs where he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose. “ _He’ll stop using them eventually. It took me a few weeks to get him to stop when he texted me._ ”

“You have the patience of a saint,” Kei mused. “I’ll probably block him by next Tuesday.”

At least that drew a laugh, or a little chuckle, from Akaashi.

“ _If you’re not going to stop using emojis,_ ” Akaashi’s tone held a hint of the coming warning, _“Tsukishima’s going to block you_.”

“ _What?! Seriously, what does Tsukki have against emojis?!”_

 _“Yeah! Emojis are the best_ I”

It took a moment for him to realize it, but then Kei finally asked, “Wait, Kuroo’s at your place again?”

“ _Yes, he is._ ” Akaashi sighed. “ _Kuroo and Bokuto decided that they were going to study math together this time._ ”

“So...Kuroo’s going to help Bokuto study?” Kei observed slowly, basing the assumption on a few previous conversations about Bokuto’s dangerously low C in college algebra. He heard Tadashi snort his amusement.

“ _Pretty much_ ,” Akaashi agreed easily. “ _He_ is _the teacher’s assistant in Bokuto’s class. He’s also taking calculus with Nekomata, so it’s not really a surprise that he’s the student helper in lower level courses.”_

“Wait,” Kei blinked, wondering if he was hearing correctly, before he asked, “Nekomata? As in, Dr. Nekomata, who teaches Math 210?”

“ _Math 210 is the one Bokuto’s in,_ ” Akaashi agreed slowly, “ _so does that mean you’re…?_ ”

“I took 210 last semester, since I tested out of the base math courses.”

 _“I can’t believe you’re at the same university as we are,_ ” Akaashi mused aloud, which was probably a bad decision, because twin gasps of surprise sounded on his end.

“ _Did you just say that Tsukki’s at our school?!_ ” Kuroo’s incredulous voice cracked on his excitement.

“I’m a biochem major, in my first year,” Kei confirmed for Akaashi’s sake, “though you don’t have to tell Kuroo that.”

“ _You’re even in the same major as Kuroo,”_ Akaashi observed with a snort, “ _though he is a second year_.”

“ _Did you say Tsukki’s in my course?!_ ” Kuroo’s voice rose higher. Kei chose to ignore it.

“That’s unfortunate,” Kei drawled, though he really didn’t think it was unfortunate. Not necessarily, but it was certainly an amazing sort of coincidence. He just hadn’t decided whether it was a good one or a bad one, but Kuroo would probably help him decide that soon enough.

“ _I guess it could be considered unfortunate_.” Akaashi’s tone had the hint of a smile. He heard an indignant squawk.

And sure enough, his phone chimed amidst the sound of Kuroo actively whining from somewhere behind Akaashi. Whining aloud wasn’t enough, because the message was in fact from Kuroo. His excessive use of punctuation only served to amuse Kei, just this once.

_From [Kuroo]: What do you MEAN????!!!!!!!!!!_

_From [Kuroo]: what’s unfortunate about it??????_

_From [Kuroo]: is it that i’m your senpai? that we haven’t met? that maybe we_ have _met and didn’t know?_

_From [Kuroo]: c’mon, tsukki, i need to K N O W_

He was amused by it, sure, but Kei wasn’t feeling particularly generous. Rather than responding with something like ‘ _it’s unfortunate that i haven’t been able to see if the bedhead is there for real_ ’, which was tempting, he responded blandly, and in such a way that would probably piss Kuroo off. Or at least make him suffer a bit more.

_To [Kuroo]: hm. I wonder._

“ _You’ve probably passed each other and not realized it,”_ Tadashi was stifling his laughter after remaining silent for the whole exchange thus far.

“ _You’re right, Yamaguchi. They probably have seen each other.”_ Akaashi spoke very deliberately, and Kei knew why when he heard Kuroo groan loudly in the background, right before something chimed.

A pathetic whine of _“Tsukkiiiiii!_ ” followed, and Kei knew he’d just read the text. He grinned.

“ _I’m the one that has to deal with him, you know._ ”

The notification that Hinata had just logged on popped up, and Kei deadpanned, “Oh, would you look at the time. Hinata’s on, so Kageyama can’t be far behind.”

Akaashi sighed, but it broke off in a halfhearted chuckle.

* * *

 

_From [Kuroo]: hey, tsukki, now that i know you’re in my program at uni and that i’m your senpai, just come to me if you have any questions :D_

_From [Kuroo]: believe it or not, i am a good student_

_From [Kuroo]: tsukki?_

Kei stared at the messages after his class and rolled his eyes a little. All three of them had, of course, come in during his class. Thankfully Kei was good about remembering to put his phone on silent when he was on school grounds.

_To [Kuroo]: thanks, but no thanks. I’m doing fine._

_To [Kuroo]: don’t you have classes or something? Or even if you don’t, stop texting me during mine._

It took only moments for Kuroo to respond.

_From [Kuroo]: oh, c’mon, tsukki, don’t be so cold!!! your senpai’s just trying to give you a hand!_

Kei snorted, and typed back a bored, _but I don’t need your hand, ‘kuroo-senpai’_ before he climbed onto the bus. He had a few hours to kill before he and Akaashi were due to meet up, and he’d promised the idiot duo that he’d run another short instance with them. There had been some kind of miscommunication, and their gym was still under construction.

They were inconsolable, and Kei was tired of the redhead’s whining about it already.

He found a seat on the bus near the back and slid into it, glancing back to his phone. It wasn’t Kuroo’s name at the top of his messages this time, but Akaashi’s, so he clicked to open the conversation.

_From [Akaashi Keiji]: Tsukishima, is it okay if Bokuto tags along? He found out we were going and decided to skip the party he was going to go to and pick up his preordered copy as well._

Bokuto, huh? At first, Kei thought he felt a little frustrated at the idea. After all, Akaashi was calm and collected, perhaps a bit savage at times, and he had planned on holding an interesting conversation with a friend. Tadashi would be so proud.

Despite that, somehow Kei had found himself surprisingly okay with Bokuto tagging along. Bokuto was loud and boisterous, sure, but he wasn’t Kuroo so he probably wouldn’t make a complete fool of himself. Or...maybe he would, considering some of the stories he’d heard from both Kuroo and Akaashi over the last month and a half. There was, however, a certain part of Kei that almost wished Kuroo could tag along, too, though he staunchly denied himself that it was because he didn’t mind the rich timbre of Kuroo’s tone and wanted to hear it without the crackling across the internet.

_To [Akaashi Keiji]: sure. As long as he can behave himself._

Kei sent the message quickly, to pull his train of thoughts back on track. Back, perhaps, to the instances he’d agreed to run with the idiot duo and away from anything related to Kuroo. Until, of course, the notification of a text from Kuroo that, when he looked, showed just a frowny face emoji at the top of his screen. He ignored that, too, and slipped his headphones on to play some music.

Another text came in.

_From [Kuroo]: no but srsly, tsukki. If you do ever want to study together…_

He weighed his options. Immediately shut Kuroo down and have him whine about how cold Kei was, _again_ , or potentially actually have Kuroo stop bugging him after being shut down. He wasn’t sure which was more likely of those two scenarios. And then there was always the option to be vague with a ‘ _maybe_ ’ or an ‘ _i’ll let you know_ ’ and just leave it at that, which would open the door for more texts in the future asking if he wanted to study at various points in the future. The first option would be a little more vague, and the second option sounded kind of like an agreement for later. A study partner during finals probably wouldn’t be a bad option, but he held that thought in reserve.

Alternatively, he could try snark again. Kuroo seemed pretty easygoing and Kei thought that being a little snarky was a safe option, so he composed a few different messages in his head.

_To [Kuroo]: good idea. I’ll ask akaashi if i need a study partner._

A moment, and then:

_From [Kuroo]: cold, tsukki. you’ll change your mind eventually, when you realize how awesome and smart your senpai is. just you wait._

He laughed to himself, glancing up to make sure this top wasn’t his, and typed back, _i won’t hold my breath._

His stop was next, so Kei put his phone away for now and stood up in preparation, ignoring the swinging handles and holding onto the bar itself. A kid, probably a middle schooler, poked his friend and pointed up at Kei, and he glanced back at them, quirking an eyebrow.

“You’re so _tall_ ,” the first boy squeaked, a sound that Kei barely heard over his music. He deigned to slide his headphones to his neck when he realized that the kid was going to speak again. “Is that what happens when you eat your vegetables?”

Kei’s perception of ages might be off, he decided. These kids were probably in elementary, with a question like that.

“If you eat your vegetables, maybe you’ll find out.”

The two boys let out twin _ooohs_ , and then one of them called out, “Thanks, mister!” as Kei moved towards the front when the bus started to slow again. He tossed up a hand nonchalantly and reached for his wallet to tap his card. He pulled his headphones back up and tucked his hands into his pockets as soon as he stepped off, walking towards his apartment and ignoring everything else.

Kuroo had probably texted back when Kei wasn’t paying attention, but he could wait.

 

After the short walk to his apartment, Kei did, in fact, have a text message from Kuroo, but also others from Tadashi and Akaashi as well.

He opened Tadashi’s first.

_From [Tadashi]: hey!!! I was like, the first one done with my test so I got out early. I’m on the way back to my room now, so i’ll be able to join you guys for the instances you were doing, if there’s still room._

_From [Tadashi]: shouyou said there was still room, so i’ll be joining! He’s asking kenma to be our fifth today!_

The messages were sent in quick succession, likely because when Hinata or Tadashi weren’t super busy they were both quick to reply. They were also pretty close, so Tadashi always got quick responses from the redhead.

_To [Tadashi]: I just got home. I’ll get on soon._

He switched to Akaashi’s messages as he turned on his computer, turning back to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. The first thanked him for being understanding, which he found amusing, and the second also added that Bokuto took forever to decide between hot chocolate, coffee, and tea, so they might want to meet up half an hour earlier. Kei sent his agreement and, by then, was returning to the seat at his computer.

_From [Kuroo]: anyway, you up for a duo queue tonight? I need some crafting stuff from one of them._

_To [Kuroo]: i’m running an instance with the idiots and tadashi, then i’m busy later. Maybe tomorrow?_

_From [Kuroo]: maybe tomorrow we can try out the new duos! It’s expansion day, remember??_

_To [Kuroo]: maybe. There’s supposed to be a good recipe for a new amulet in one of them._

_From [Kuroo]: how did i know you’d say that, tsukki??_

_From [Kuroo]: mark it on your calendar, then! we’ll do one or two duos tomorrow. 7 good for you?_

Kei considered as he signed into the game and pulled on his headset. He’d have time to get home, eat something, and then shower, so he supposed that seven was fine. He answered as much, and then joined the voice chat where Hinata and Kageyama were already waiting and, by the sound of it, bickering.

“ _—no,_ you _are, Bakageyama!_ ”

“ _How am I—what the hell, dumbass?_ ”

“ _Bakageyama, Bakageyama, Bakageyama!_ ” Hinata declared, loudly and in Kei’s ears.

“What the hell,” Kei started dryly, “did I just come into?”

“ _Tsukki!_ ” Hinata practically wailed, and Kei groaned softly as he manually dragged the volume of Hinata’s mic down. He had to do it periodically, but he always hoped, in vain, that Hinata would grow out of it. “ _Kageyama won’t admit that it’s his turn to do the dishes!_ ”

 _What the hell_ , Kei thought to himself, with feeling. They were trying to blow out his eardrums...for that?

“Can’t you argue about things like that when you’re _not_ in the voice chat?” he asked, his voice trailing along the edge of frustration. “Have mercy on everyone else’s eardrums. Why don’t you have the conversation in person, when you _live together_ , instead of having it online?”

 _“It’s too much work to get up right now,_ ” Kageyama groused, “ _since we were already logged in when dumbass Hinata brought it up._ ”

Kei sighed, but was saved by the sound of another person joining the voice chat.

“ _Tadashi_!” Hinata beat him to greeting him. “ _I’m glad you could make it!_ ”

“ _Hey, Shouyou. What’s up, guys?”_

“They’re arguing over dishes in the voice chat.” Kei reported dutifully, flipping a page in his notes and opening a blank word document on his second monitor to start typing a rough draft for his paper. “I’m doing homework while I wait for the instance, and then I’m going to go meet up with Akaashi and Bokuto and we’re going to wait in line to pick up our preorders.”

There was a beat, and then, “ _Man, I wish I could go out and pick it up tonight_!” Hinata whined, his voice scratchy across the headset.

“ _Shut up, dumbass. We all want to get it tonight, but that asshole’s the only one that can_.” He could hear the bitterness in Kageyama’s grumbling tone.

Tadashi chuckled in that almost placating way he had. “ _C’mon, we’ve all got it preordered. We’ll still get ours tomorrow, or whenever we can get to the store._ ”

“ _But I wanted to be one of the first to play_ ,” Hinata pouted. Kei couldn’t see it, but he knew Hinata well enough to hear it in his tone. “ _The first ones to reach the new level cap on each server always get something cool, you know!_ ”

“You weren’t going to be the first to the new cap anyway.” Kei interjected shortly, typing a highlighted line from his notes into his rough draft. Hinata started to protest that, but Tadashi spoke up.

“ _Tsukki’s right. You’ve got volleyball and classes between you and that level cap and you know it, Shouyou._ ”

Tadashi was showing those traits that had led Ukai and Takeda to pick him for team captain their third year in high school. Kei had heard that specific tone several times when Tadashi had to settle disputes between the first and second years, and when he’d had to step in between his fellow third years for appearances sometimes.

The younger members never quite caught on that Kageyama only yelled at Hinata to resist the urge to kiss him. Kei would be amazed if the idiot duo had even realized that themselves, considering he wasn’t even sure if they were officially together yet or not.

“ _He’s just saying that to be mean, Tadashi!_ ” Hinata whined, his tone taking on that tattle-tale tone. Kei scoffed.

“Do you think i have nothing better to do than torment you?”

“ _Of course you don’t, Grumpyshima! You don’t have volleyball anymore!_ ”

One track minds, Kei decided in that instant, would never change. Hinata Shouyou had always been a volleyball fanatic through and through, and it seemed like the trend had not changed in the months they’d been apart since high school graduation. Kageyama had surely fared no better.

“I’m taking 18 credits this semester, but sure, I’ve got nothing better.” Kei had carefully regulated his tone to sound as dry and bored as possible.

“ _You’re not going to be one of the first either, asshole_ ,” he heard Kageyama’s frown in his tone as he rose to the defense of his probably not-boyfriend, “ _so why do you care_?”

“Better to nip the idea in the bud than let him keep hoping to be the first to the new level cap.”

He heard a snort that sounded as though it had been quickly stifled and suspiciously like Tadashi. At least his oldest friend was still with him.

“ _You’re still just doing it to be mean_ ,” Hinata decided.

“If you say so.” Kei relented, shrugging even though no one would see it. He didn’t have the energy to argue with an idiot’s logic, so he turned back to his notes to find a particular section he wanted to reference.

“ _Ignore him, he’s just a dumbass_ ,” Kageyama declared, though Kei wasn’t sure whether he was talking to him or to Hinata.

“Maybe one day,” Kei mused aloud, just to be a little shit, “his vocabulary will expand with more insulting words.”

“ _Enough, enough_ ,” Tadashi’s voice cut in, slightly strained. Kei heard the little chuckle at the end, and filed the entire conversation away under _the weird things that remind Tadashi of the high school volleyball club_. He always had to try not to laugh whenever Kei purposely antagonized the others, which often made him wonder why Ukai had still pushed for him to be team captain. “ _Are we waiting on Kenma?_ ”

“ _Oh_!” Hinata’s tone changed instantly. It was brighter, more cheerful, and Kei highlighted another sentence to come back to as he flipped the page in his notes. “ _Yeah, we are! He’s planning on lining up later with Kuroo to get their preorders, like a certain Stingyshima here, so he said he’d only do one with us. He’s on his way home from the konbini and then he was gonna feed his cat, but he’ll be on after that! Should only be about ten more minutes!_ ”

Kei knew, from previous conversations, that Kenma and Kuroo were childhood friends. Their personalities didn’t seem to have a lot of overlap and sometimes he wondered to himself how they got along, but he always decided to come back to that question at a later date. He returned his attention to his rough draft, hummed to acknowledge the new information, and continued to work on his paper.

 _“Well, make sure you’ve got the inventory space for whatever you’re wanting to pick up_ ,” Tadashi chipred, though Kei heard a few papers shuffling on his end, too. “ _You know Kenma doesn’t like to wait for that kind of prep._ ”

“ _Crap!”_ Hinata’s wail was expected by now, and his avatar glowed. “ _I don’t have much space! I’m gonna teleport back to the nearest city so I can use the bank!_ ”

“ _Shit_.” Kageyama’s avatar started to glow, too.

Kei stifled his chuckles more successfully than Tadashi did, but HInata was never mad at Tadashi so he had nothing to fear. And if Kageyama was offended and tried to come at Tadashi for laughing, Kei figured that the redhead would go off on _him_ instead of Tadashi. That’s probably part of why Kageyama kept his big mouth shut, this time.

Kei continued to draft his paper in peace, or relative peace. Hinata and Kageyama were kind of bickering halfheartedly in the background, and Kei was able to tune it out fairly well. He’d learned to study with their particular brand of noise in the background years ago, so it was nothing to work up a rough draft of one of his papers while they were arguing about how many potions they’d need for the simple instance they were about to run.

Tadashi was muttering in English on his end, which was a newer development but still no more distracting than the idiot duo.

“ _Aha_!” Hinata cried out in triumph only a few moments later, in the middle of his conversation with Kageyama. “ _I’ve got plenty of room now_!”

“ _I’m done, too_ ,” Kageyama wasn’t far behind, and then, “ _so...race you back to the instance entrance!_ ”

“ _Eh?! No fair, Bakageyama, you’ve got a head start!_ ” Hinata whined, but Kei would have put money on him scrambling to follow. He’d done the same in high school whenever the setter had challenged him to a race, even in those instances where Kageyama had a ahead start. Tadashi shuffled a few papers and sighed, and Kei had the feeling that he’d reached the same conclusion in his head. Some things just never changed, and that included Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio. It always had, and he suspected it always would.

The sound that announced a new person entering the voice chat sounded, and Kei glanced over from the monitor his paper was pulled up on.

“ _Can I get a party invite_?” Kenma asked in lieu of greeting, his name lighting up in the voice chat channel for a moment.

“ _Just a sec_ ,” Tadashi answered almost immediately, and then, “ _you should get it soon_.”

“ _Thanks_.” Kenma’s character information popped up in the party list, just after Tadashi’s. “ _I’ll be there in just a few minutes. Is everyone else ready?_ ”

“ _Kenmaaaa!_ ” Hinata called over excitedly, and Kei winced. If his ears hurt from the sound of Hinata’s voice, he could only imagine what it was like to people when they were yelled at as soon as they joined the chat. “ _Yeah, we’re ready!_ ”

“ _Mostly, anyway._ ” Tadashi conceded, and Kei snorted. Tadashi was either referring to his own preparations, which he hadn’t said anything about, or to the fact that Hinata and Kageyama hadn’t yet returned to the instance entrance after rushing off to use the bank.

Depending on how much of a head start the idiots actually had, Kei would almost bet on Kenma arriving first. _Almost_.

The almost was because the idiot duo had enough of a head start to arrive at nearly the same time as Kenma, though Kenma did show just a fraction of a second before Hinata and Kageyama did.

“ _Let’s get through this,_ ” Tadashi said brightly, and Kei heard him push whatever homework or assignments he was working on to the side, “ _so that Kenma and Tsukki can go meet up with the others later to pick up their preorders._ ”

“ _Let’s go_ ,” Kenma agreed easily. “ _Kuroo’s going to be here two hours earlier than we agreed to meet up just to force me to go out_.”

 _Sounds like Kuroo_ , Kei thought with a snort. Hinata chuckled loudly and boisterously demanded that they start the instance, so Kenma, who’d been promoted to party leader, must have selected the option to enter. The dialogue box that popped up asked if he was ready, and Kei clicked the affirmative and had to wait for everyone else to do the same.

 

A few hours later, Kei found himself on the subway to the station nearest his meeting point with Akaashi and Bokuto. Akaashi said that they would wait for him by the station and they could walk to the little coffee shop together, and he’d had no reason to refuse. He wasn't overly familiar with Tokyo yet, having grown up and gone to school in Miyagi prior to university, so he didn't mind being guided. Or at least not much.

He'd texted Akaashi to tell him that he was on the way, and received a return message that they were nearby and would make their way to the station.

He checked the stops on the map and texted Akaashi again.

_To [Akaashi]: almost there._

_From [Akaashi]: we'll be waiting across the street._

Kei slid his phone safely into his pocket and joined the crowd shuffling closer to the doors. He wondered, idly, how many of them were there to line up for the _Final Haikyuu Quest_ expansion, but quickly decided it wasn't worth thinking about.

He followed them off the subway and made his way towards the station exit, through the stiles and up towards the street.

“Tsukki! Tsukki, over here!”

Kei glanced up as he climbed out of the subway station to see a tall, broad man waving from across the street, just like Akaashi had said. His hair was spiked up and the ends were dyed white. Kei recognized him from several of Akaashi's Facebook photos, tagged as _Bokuto Koutarou_. Next to him, a slightly shorter, leaner man stood. Akaashi Keiji glanced up from his phone, then shifted to slide it into his pocket and waved. His movements were careful and controlled, nothing like Bokuto's outrageous gestures, and Kei just nodded to acknowledge them back before searching for the crosswalk.

Bokuto jogged over to meet him.

“Hey hey hey, Tsukki!” He beamed, and Kei wondered if he was always this energetic or I'd he was just cursed to always deal with people at their most obnoxious moments. Like Hinata, all the time. “Wow, you're so _tall_! Look, 'Kaashi, he's taller than me!”

Kei intended to offer a hand to shake, but Bokuto took the outstretched hand and pulled him in for a quick hug. He was caught off guard by the action and only after a solid moment did he awkwardly raise a hand to Pat at Bokuto's elbow. It was just a little uncomfortable to be hugged out of the blue by someone he was only just meeting in person for the first time, especially since Kei wasn't a very tactile person in the first place.

“I—what?” He managed dumbly in lieu of the greeting he'd had on the tip of his tongue.

“Bokuto, personal space,” Akaashi chided, and then offered his hand. “Sorry, Tsukishima. It's nice to meet you in person.”

He reached forward to take Akaashi's hand, clearing his throat carefully before agreeing with a simple, “Likewise.”

“Sorry, Tsukki! Please don't be mad at me!” Bokuto clapped his hands together and offered a short bow. “I was just really excited to see you and meet you in person!”

“Just don't do it again and you'll be fine.”

Kei wondered, briefly, if that was too cold, but Bokuto beamed.

“No problem! Thanks, Tsukki! I won't let you down!”

 _Quick recovery_ , Kei mused, but he didn’t really have long to consider it before Bokuto flounced ahead and called for the others to follow. There was a slight chill in the air, so that warm drink they were getting was sounding better and better.

“Are you really alright?” Akaashi asked after a bit, with Bokuto whistling ahead, laughing and calling them slowpokes. Akaashi had been ignoring it, or placating him with simple ‘ _we’re right behind you’s_ , so Kei had followed suit. “Being hugged so suddenly, I mean. You kind of tensed a little, back there, and you don’t have to pretend it’s fine if it’s not.”

Kei shrugged. “I don’t mind being touched. I _was_ in a sports club in high school,” Akaashi chuckled softly, but still glanced at Kei in concern so he sighed and added, “but it’s true I’m not big on hugs.”

“I can talk to him later, if you want me to.”

He glanced ahead, and shrugged. “It’s fine, Akaashi. He said he wouldn’t do it again, so I’ll trust him. It was just a surprise, that’s all.”

Akaashi hummed in response as Bokuto bounced to a stop in front of their apparent destination.

“Why are you being so slow?!” he whined. “I want some hot chocolate!”

“I thought you said he was slow to decide?” Kei asked as Bokuto reached for Akaashi’s hand and tugged him through the door. He followed behind as Akaashi sighed and glanced back to give an answer.

“Just watch.”

“Hey hey hey, they’ve got a new coffee that sounds good! Look, ‘Kaashi!” Bokuto chirped almost before Akaashi had finished speaking, and he shot an exasperated glance at Kei. He merely raised a brow in response and took a look up at the cafe’s menu himself, scanning for something that sounded good. Bokuto, as if he hadn’t even been paying attention to the others, continued to muse over what was on the menu board. “Oh, look, they’ve got new seasonal teas, too! Do you see one you’d like, ‘Kaashi? Huh? And white chocolate mochas! And white hot chocolate! Ooooh, which one should I get?”

Akaashi, however, stepped forward and ordered himself a tea and Bokuto a white hot chocolate. Bokuto stopped fawning over the menu and laughed, slipping up and dropping and arm around his shoulder.

“Will that work for you?” Akaashi glanced up and asked him, arching a thin brow.

“It’s perfect!” Bokuto responded easily, laughing. “I’ll pay, though. And hey, Tsukki! Tell them what you want, I’ll get yours too!”

Kei blinked, and started to protest. He’d been momentarily caught off guard by Akaashi’s sudden decision to order for both of them, especially after Akaashi’s prior warnings about how long Bokuto took to decide what he wanted. It would give them more time to get to know each other, though.

“Just order, Tsukishima,” Akaashi interrupted him with more success than Bokuto’s insistence that he order, “or he’ll never let it go. Trust me.”

He sighed, but placed his order. It was a simple cappuccino, but it seemed to please Bokuto.

“That’s the spirit!” Bokuto laughed, and Kei was forced to admit that he was as loud in person as he was over the headset. He was so much like Hinata in that sense that it was slightly unnerving. He entertained the idea of the two meeting in person, and quickly regretted the idea. He didn’t think he’d survive any encounter between the two of them, and promised himself he’d never suggest a meetup with his own mouth. _Ever_.

“Let’s take a seat,” Akaashi suggested, his drink in hand, “we can talk for a while before we head to Gamers.”

“Sure,” Kei agreed easily when his order was up. He picked up his cup carefully, and Bokuto led the way to a booth in the corner.

“Let’s sit here!” he declared, sliding into one of the window seats. “C’mon, ‘Kaashi! C’mon, Tsukki!”

Bokuto patted the seat next to him like a child, and Kei very deliberately took the seat across from him. The seat next to him was practically observed for Akaashi anyway, and Kei probably would’ve known that even if he didn’t know that they were a thing beforehand. Akaashi sat down with probably more grace than either of them, and sat his tea carefully on the table in front of him. Bokuto beamed, and then leaned on his elbows to lean closer to Kei.

“So, Tsukki!” he started, cheerfully. “How do you like playing with us?!”

He arched a brow and sipped carefully at his drink before he answered. “You mean FHQ?”

“Well, yeah! But also, how do you like hanging out with us? I mean, we’ve only been hanging out for like, ten minutes at most, but I’m having fun!” Bokuto laughed in that same childlike way he had, and Kei couldn’t help but snort softly. He was a beefy grown man acting several years younger than his age, and Kei found himself understanding a little bit of why Akaashi was so attached to him.

Just a little, though. He found it hard to imagine himself growing as attached, but he could see himself being at least friends with him. It was like being friends with an older, buffer Hinata.

He shuddered a little at the thought, and tried to find the words to actually reply to Bokuto’s question.

“You guys are good at the game,” he started slowly, remembering when they tried to pair up with Noya and Tanaka and wiped four times in a row. The two were better now that they’d found classes that suited them, but they didn’t play as often as they used to. “It’s nice to know the people you’re running dungeons with, instead of just pairing up with randoms all the time.”

“That’s true,” Akaashi smiled, just a slight curve of his lips, “and you guys are all good, too. I can see why Kenma actually likes playing with Hinata and the others.”

“Haha, you’re right!” Bokuto grinned and leaned back, taking a sip of his white hot chocolate. “Kenma’s always been a little uptight about who he plays with, since he’s so good at video games. He doesn’t like to lose, either. But that means we usually don’t wipe on the boss fights, so I don’t mind that he’s picky!”

Kei nodded, holding his cappuccino in the circle of his hands as he noted, “I don’t think we’ve ever failed a mission when we’ve had Kenma in the party.”

“He’s a very capable player.” Akaashi stated sagely, and Bokuto loudly agreed.

“Hey hey hey, though, don’t think I forgot the other part of my question, Tsukki! How do you like hanging out with us so far?”

He blinked back at Bokuto, who was leaning a little too far forward again, and decided to poke fun. “Huh, what was that? I don’t think you’re asking loud enough, Bokuto.”

The man blinked owlishly, then inhaled sharply as if he was going to repeat himself louder before Akaashi reached over and slapped a hand over his mouth in an instant. He sighed and cast a look at Kei, but his eyes were twinkling so Kei smirked and shrugged back.

“What are you doing, ‘Kaashi, I’m just gonna say it again so Tsukki can hear—”

“He’s not having trouble hearing you, Bokuto, he’s teasing you because you don’t know what an inside voice is.”

“What—oh!” the realization dawned, and then Bokuto pouted. “Tsukki, that’s not nice!”

“Hinata tells me I’m mean on an almost daily basis. I’m immune to any accusations of the kind, at this point.”

Akaashi snorted, and reached for his tea again. He stayed a little closer to Bokuto than he’d been sitting before and glanced carefully at Kei through his lashes, as though judging his reaction. Kei had none, aside from noting that they looked good together, and even if he had any reaction it wouldn’t have been negative considering that the only person he’d ever been well and truly attracted to had been a senior on one of the volleyball teams he’d seen in high school tournaments. He never did learn the guy’s name, though, and it was frustrating when there was a guy in the biochem lecture that looked kind of similar.

Bokuto sighed dramatically, completely missing whatever look Akaashi had given to Kei, and leaned on him. “‘Kaashi, Tsukki really is being mean!”

“There, there,” Akaashi said dryly, patting his arm, “now can I get back to my tea?”

Kei couldn’t help himself. Rather than snorting, he started to chuckle, raising his hand so he could kind of hide behind it. Bokuto stopped whining and turned to look at him, staring openly, and Akaashi raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, wow,” Bokuto mused, “Tsukki really _can_ laugh.”

“Bokuto,” Akaashi elbowed him, and the bigger man yelped and flailed a little, nearly knocking over his drink. Kei cleared his throat and collected himself, sitting straighter and reaching for his own drink once again.

“Ow, ‘Kaashi, that hurt,” Bokuto muttered, rubbing his side, “what was that for?”

He sighed heavily, and Kei grinned again. After a few moments, he opted to break the silence and asked, “What are you majoring in? You already know I’m in biochem.”

“Hey hey! Me first!” Bokuto grinned, perking back up at the fact that Kei was initiating conversation. “I’m in the physical therapy track!”

That...was not exactly what Kei had been expecting. It must have shown, because Bokuto grinned almost shyly and scratched the back of his head before he added, “I had an injury over the summer between high school and university, and if it weren’t for my physical therapy and my athleticism, they said I wouldn’t have been able to keep playing volleyball competitively. I don’t ever want to give up on volleyball, so my physical therapist basically saved my life! I want to be that person for someone else, once I’m done playing!”

It was an admirable goal. Kei was studying biochemistry because he was good at it, and it could branch into other fields if necessary. He didn’t have any really lofty goals, but he had considered branching into pharmaceutical pursuits. Bokuto’s conviction made him feel a little bit guilty that he didn’t have stronger reasons.

“I’m in psychology,” Akaashi spoke up after a brief pause and a glance at Bokuto, who was taking another drink of his white hot chocolate, “though I haven’t decided exactly which branch I’m going to focus on yet. I’d like to be a psychiatrist, so I’m taking the prep courses to get into the medical program.”

Kei remembered Akaashi apologizing once for Bokuto backing out of running a few quests one night, and Kuroo asking if it was one of Bokuto’s moods. He wondered if that had anything to do with the look he’d given Bokuto when he’d introduced his major, but Kei wasn’t about to pry. He’d only just officially met them, after all. He filed the information away as a possibility, and nodded.

“I don’t have any big goals with biochem,” Kei shrugged a little, trying to be nonchalant. “I like it and I’m good at it, so I thought I’d figure it out as I go.”

“Nothin’ wrong with that!” Bokuto piped up, leaning back in his seat again. “Sometimes winging it is fun!”

Akaashi agreed, taking another drink of his tea.

After fifteen more minutes of conversation, about classes and grades and a little bit of Kei teasing Bokuto for his struggle in math, Akaashi suggested they go get in line. Kei didn’t have any objections, but Bokuto decided that they couldn’t wait in line without snacks, so they agreed to stop at a konbini on the way.

“Tsukki, you grab some drinks and I’ll grab some snacks!” Bokuto declared as soon as they had stepped into the nearest Family Mart. “‘Kaashi, maybe some pork buns or something? Is that alright with you, Tsukki?”

“Sure,” Kei shrugged. He didn’t really have a preference either way, though it felt kind of nostalgic to get pork buns with volleyball players, former or no.

“Good! Divide and conquer, my minions!” Bokuto let out a boisterous laugh, and darted away before either of them could contradict him. Akaashi sighed heavily and muttered something under his breath, but Kei just shrugged and headed to grab something to drink. Pocari Sweat, some Ito-En tea, and a few bottles of water. They’d figure something out after that, he supposed. They reconvened once more at the front of the store, and Bokuto insisted on paying for everything again. He cited his sports scholarship as the primary reason, and Kei decided not to protest.

They found themselves joining the end of the line shortly after, at the tail end of a long line that stretched down the sidewalk. There were a few people near the front just casually sitting on the ground playing cards, and more just standing and idly scrolling through their phones with headphones on or earbuds in.

Kei would have been one of them, if he hadn’t come with Akaashi and Bokuto.

The three had only just joined the line when a voice suddenly called out, “Bo! Akaashi! I can’t believe you guys came without us!” and a tall guy with messy black hair tossed an arm up and over Bokuto’s shoulders. A shorter man with bleached hair trailed a little behind, playing something on his phone. He glanced up, met Kei’s eyes, and gave him a curt nod before returning to his game.

“Bro!” Bokuto cried, a little too enthused about it all as he allowed his own arm to drop around the other man’s waist comfortably, almost as if it was second nature. “Akaashi’s the one who made plans to be here originally, not me!”

Kei tried not to stare, but it was kind of impossible. The guy looked familiar, and it wasn’t just because he was pretty certain it was _the_ upperclassman from one of the other volleyball teams he’d played in high school. The one he’d been mildly attracted to at the time, and who looked very similar to one of the guys across the room in his biochem lecture, not that he’d been paying attention. No, there was something about his hair, and his _voice_ , and...oh.

Oh _no_.

With a certain clarity of mind, Tsukishima Kei realized that he was probably looking right at Kuroo Tetsurou in the flesh, and he slid his hands in his pockets and tried to appear as small as a man well over 190 centimeters tall could. It obviously didn’t work.

“I knew Akaashi had it out for me!” he laughed, and then turned to glance at Kei. “Hey, who’s this?” the newcomer asked, looking Kei up and down for a moment. His brow pinched, and then he asked, “Wait, did you go to Karasuno in Miyagi? Middle blocker, right?”

Bokuto gasped, eyebrows shooting up as he turned to Kei. “Wait, you were on the team with the freak quick?!”

Kei’s mind started spinning, but after staring blankly at Kuroo for a few long moments all he could say was, “I can’t believe Kuronya’s bedhead was a reflection of reality.”

Kuroo’s jaw dropped slightly and then recognition slowly dawned. He composed himself enough to splutter, “Wait, _Tsukki_?”

“Shouyou is the spiker from the freak quick, Kuroo,” the quiet newcomer stated simply, never looking up from his phone. “I thought you knew? I met Shouyou in Miyagi that one time we went for a practice match.”

_Oh, yeah, it was a practice match where I first saw him._

“I’m not even worried about that, Kenma, it’s _Tsukki,_ ” Kuroo insisted, pointing childishly. When he realized that Kenma wasn’t interested, he turned and grasped Kei by the shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?! We could have come _together_!”

“And willingly given up my sanity?” Kei managed, his chest tightening at the proximity. “No thanks.”

 _Why. Why me,_ was the only thought running through his head as Kuroo snorted and dropped his arm easily around Kei’s shoulders. Akaashi looked like he wanted to say something about Kei’s personal bubble.

“Tsukki, I’m immune to your coldness,” Kuroo declared easily, “so try your worst!”

“Kuro, don’t harass him,” Kenma looked up from his level select screen, frowning a little. “This is the first time you’ve actually talked to him. Don’t scare him off.”

“I’m not harassing! I’m being friendly!” he protested, but his arm dropped from Kei’s shoulder as he crossed both of them across his chest. “Right, Tsukki?!”

“I wonder.”

Kuroo groaned, and Kei smirked. Akaashi hid a smile in the light scarf around his neck, and Bokuto started laughing again. It was loud and carried and earned them a few looks from other people further up in the line, but Kei found that he didn’t particularly care. Kenma just sighed and shook his head, selecting his level and starting to play.

“Sorry, Tsukishima,” Akaashi said mildly, “I didn’t mean to expose you to both Kuroo and Bokuto all at once.”

The two men in question immediately protested, Kenma snorted, and Kei rolled his eyes. He couldn’t keep himself from grinning just a little, though, when he shrugged and said, “Maybe I’ll just have to make you suffer through an entire argument between Kageyama and Hinata so we’ll be even.”

“Excuse you, I’m a _blessing_ to be around,” Kuroo declared, lightly nudging Kei’s side with his elbow. He was a few centimeters shorter than Kei and his elbow aligned perfectly with an uncomfortable spot, so he leaned away from the nudge with an unimpressed look at Kuroo. He laughed.

“Sure you are,” Kei deadpanned, keeping his expression carefully neutral.

“Now, now, don’t be cold to your senpai,” he grinned roguishly at Kei, patting him on the shoulder. “I could help you out, you know! But maybe I won’t, since you’re being so disrespectful.”

“Oh, no, whatever will I do without your help, Kuroo-senpai,” Kei drawled, crossing his arms loosely over his chest and kind of cocking a hip. His tone was flat, which made Bokuto laugh loudly again, and Akaashi rolled his eyes. Kenma snorted, glancing briefly up from his mobile game.

“You’ll come around,” the older student said, with conviction.

“You’re older than I am, and yet you’re taking the same classes as I am. Should I really trust you?” Kei arched a brow.

“A valid point,” Akaashi interjected, “if Kuroo wasn’t an indecisive man who switched majors last year.”

That _did_ explain why they had the lecture together, though Kei tried not to let the understanding show on his face, opting to keep his expression of disbelief instead.

“Don’t call me out like that,” Kuroo groaned, tossing his head back, “I’m still getting shit from my dad for it and it’s been eight months. _Tetsurou, be a man! Stick out what you’ve started! Don’t drop it like you dropped volleyball!_ ” He imitated an older man’s voice, then paused and laughed, “Wait, I was imitating Gramps! Oh well, same idea. Dad probably got it from him, anyway, so it’s not far off.”

“That’s not fair of them, though!” Bokuto cried, tossing an arm around Kuroo’s shoulder. “Your major takes too much work to play volleyball! You made that choice so you could focus on your studies! It’s not like you quit playing just to quit!”

 _One track minds_ , Kei mused again. Of course the one that still played volleyball would latch on to the part about the sport.

Kuroo just shrugged, and Bokuto let his arm fall. “I mean, I kind of deserved it. I kind of knew I wasn’t going to like physics, but I tried it first anyway. It is what it is, bro, but at least I know I want to be in this program now!” He followed with a laugh, as if making light of it.

Kei wanted to ask what made him so sure of this major this time, but Bokuto had leapt in with assurances that he was sure Kuroo was right and he’d get it this time and his chance was gone. He wasn’t sure if it would have been pushing it or not, so he was almost glad for the interruption.

“So you were coming out with Keiji and Koutarou,” the blond that had arrived with Kuroo was standing next to Kei, now, and Kei recognized the tone. “I kind of understand why you didn’t tell Kuro.”

“How long have you put up with him?” Kei shot back, and Kenma snorted.

“Feels like my whole life, but since I was six or seven? Sometimes I forget.” He shrugged, glancing up before returning to the game on his phone. “You get used to him, though. The way he is now, you’d never believe that he used to be the shy one.”

Kei blinked in surprise. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Kuroo and Bokuto were fake-bickering loudly, earning some stares and some glares from other people in the line. To think that someone with so little care for those around him used to be shy was kind of incredible. Moreso when it was _Kuroo_.

“Looks like you’re already kind of used to him, though,” Kenma observed, shrugging a little.

“I’ll never get used to him.”

Kenma chuckled, almost to himself, and just shook his head. “If you say so, Kei. If you say so.”

Kei wanted to retort and deny the doubt in Kenma’s tone, but when Kuroo came back over and begged for Kei to save him from Akaashi’s savage nature, he wondered if it would really be so bad to get used to having Kuroo around.

 


	3. Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kei reluctantly starts hanging out with Kuroo more often, and it turns out that he's not as bad as Kei expected.
> 
> OR
> 
> Kei might, possibly, have a crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. I got so busy, and then I got sick, and school started up again, and I HOPE IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!!!

“C’mon, Tsukki!” Kuroo leaned over the table as the rest of the class started to file in for the lecture. “I can’t say no to studying with Bo unless I have other plans. It’s a conscience thing! And it’s not that I don’t want to study with him, but I end up helping him with his math more than I end up doing my own assignments!”

“That sounds like a personal problem,” Kei intoned dully, flipping his notebook to the next page in preparation for the day.

“ _Tsukki_ ,” Kuroo whined, pathetically, “please, please study with me tonight. You can pick the time and the place. I’ll even buy snacks or food or whatever, just save me from myself.”

He arched a brow, and Kuroo groaned.

“I’m not beyond begging, Tsukki,” he warned, voice verging on desperate. “There’s approximately a metric _fuckton_ of work I have to do before lab tomorrow and if I help Bo tonight, I won’t get any of it done. And I know you’re still working on it because I just _saw_ your sheets when you were flipping through your notebook, so let’s help each other out.”

Kei weighed the pros and cons. Since accidentally running into Kuroo with Kenma at the expansion release last week, he’d started to realize that they passed in the halls a lot. They did have the same major, after all, even if Kuroo was in his second year of it after his change in major.

Kuroo was loud and drew attention. He was also pretty popular with other students on campus, which made him a magnet for social interactions. Kei had already witnessed Kuroo smiling and waving at him only to immediately get pulled into conversation with someone else, so he could only assume that Kuroo had at least a passing acquaintance with half of campus. If they went somewhere to study, they’d probably get interrupted.

“Tsukki. Tsukishima. C’mon.”

Then again, if Kuroo got desperate enough, maybe Kei could get a good deal out of it. It wasn’t like his company was terrible, after all. If he really couldn’t stand the man, he wouldn’t do so many duos with him in _Final Haikyuu Quest_ , nor would he have allowed Kuroo to coerce his way into a seat next to Kei without protest the way he had.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Kuroo was still one of the most attractive people Kei had met, or that Kuroo Tetsurou was most likely the catalyst for Kei’s gay epiphany.

“Tsukishima Kei, I’ll do _anything_.”

Kuroo’s voice cracked, and Kei adjusted his glasses before shifting his papers in front of him one more time. He tried not to enjoy Kuroo’s pain too much.

“Anything?”

“I’m serious, Tsukki, I need to _not_ study with Bo tonight. You get coffee for this class like, every day right? I’ll buy it for you for two weeks! I’ll buy you lunch, and I’ll give you all the crafting materials I loot during our next duo. _Please_. I need to pass this class.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Kei drawled, watching the clock tick nearer to the beginning of class. Would it be too cruel to make him wait to hear an affirmative answer until after the lecture?

When the professor cleared his throat at the front of the classroom, however, the decision was out of Kei’s hands. He did enjoy watching Kuroo squirm, and he ignored it when Kuroo whined his name under his breath during the lecture. Instead, he wrote on a sticky note.

_If you’re so worried about failing, then pay attention in class._

Kuroo groaned again, but paid attention to the professor, and Kei didn’t hear a peep out of him for the remaining forty minutes of lecture, aside from one whispered request for a sticky tab and the following _thanks_.

He was still gathering his things when Kei stood up and passed him. Kuroo was on the end of the row, and Kei took a few steps down before turning back and drumming his fingers on the table to get Kuroo’s attention.

“Hm?”

“Six o’clock, the campus café. If you add a slice of strawberry shortcake, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

He waited only a moment, watching as recognition slowly dawned, and then turned his back before Kuroo could see him smile. He didn’t want to give his upperclassman that kind of satisfaction just yet.

“ _Tsukki!_ ” he wailed, and Kei just raised a hand and called over his shoulder.

“Don’t be late, _senpai_!”

* * *

 

“C’mon, you can’t tell me that you aren’t excited to do that new max level raid,” Kuroo leaned across the table, grinning in that almost feral way that Kei was quickly becoming accustomed to. “We’re level 98 now, so we’ve only got two more until the new level cap, you know. The others aren’t too far behind, so we won’t have long to wait!”

“Uh huh.” Kei opted to keep his tone as deadpan as possible, so that Kuroo wouldn’t get too excited in the middle of the coffee shop he’d been coerced into meeting at. “I think we’ll be waiting at least a week for Hinata and Kageyama and Lev to catch up.”

“Well, that’ll give you more time to pick out what drops you want, right, Tsukki?” Kuroo mused, leaning back and flipping a page in his calculus textbook. “Unless you wanna grind those last two levels and do a random party queue tonight or something. I mean, we _are_ already doing a duo, so what’s a bit of grinding?”

“Absolutely not.”

Kuroo laughed, loudly, and Kei inwardly groaned. It was just like Kuroo to be loud, though, and he didn’t know how he’d ever expected it to be any different. This was already the fourth time that the older student had convinced Kei to come out to the campus coffee shop to study with him, and it had only been three weeks since the accidental meeting at Gamers, and just two since Kuroo had begged Kei to study with him so he could say no to Bokuto.

Kei must have been a much weaker man than he’d given himself credit for. It was tragic.

“Well, you probably want that nice shield that’s part of the lunar set. That legendary one.”

“And I’m sure you want the legendary axe from the sixth boss, so what’s your point?”

With another boisterous laugh, Kuroo looked up from his textbook and said, “You’re taking the whole moon imagery thing really seriously, eh, _Tsukishima_?”

“I still don’t see your point,” Kei groused, navigating on his laptop to the paper he was trying to write. “Hinata’s going for the set of sun-stitched leather, why aren’t you pestering him about this?”

“You’re more fun.” Kuroo shrugged, twirling his pencil in hand before leaning down to start working through an equation. “You doing alright on the paper?”

Kei glanced up at Kuroo, unamused, and drawled, “I already told you I wouldn’t need your help, _senpai_.”

“Just asking, just asking!” he snorted, though his voice sounded a little pinched. Kei rolled his eyes with a click of his tongue and then returned to his paper even as Kuroo turned back to his textbook and then to his work. “I _have_ already taken some of the classes you’re in and was offering my help to my precious underclassman out of the goodness of my heart. I don’t know if I’ll help you next time, after this cruel treatment…”

“Maybe I’ll actually be able to study in peace that way,” Kei quipped easily, sliding up to edit a previous sentence.

“You’ll understand just how helpful I am one day, Tsukki, I guarantee it.”

“Mhm,” Kei hummed, returning to his previous spot in the text, “and I promise I won’t hold my breath waiting for that day.”

Kuroo just snorted, but at least he finally let it drop while he finished a few of his homework problems. Kei glanced up when Kuroo shifted to take a drink of his tea, and quickly returned his attention to the conclusion of his paper before the older man could notice the attention. He heard the teacup when it was placed back on the table, and then the shuffling as Kuroo flipped over his assignment sheet to continue.

“Y’know, I’ll even offer to help you when you get to calculus,” Kuroo broke the silence, and Kei glanced back up, arching a brow. “After a while, it’s not too hard to get the hang of, but it would definitely help to have a student mentor who’s been through this when you get there.”

“That just sounds like an underhanded way of complaining that you think calculus is hard.”

“Tsukki, don’t call me out like this,” Kuroo deadpanned, then sighed and rolled his shoulders. “It’s really not bad, I guess? It’s just tedious, and theorems and formulas are always hard to remember.”

“Still sounds like complaining to me.”

Kuroo groaned. “Fine,” he conceded as he rested his chin in his hand, “I’m complaining. You would, too, if Nekomata had just given you two weeks worth of work all due by next class.”

“Oh?” Kei raised an eyebrow. “Then are you sure you still want to run a duo later tonight? Since you’ve got so much homework to do, after all, maybe you should take a break from the game for a night. You’re not as young as you used to be, _senpai_.”

“Don’t think you can get out of bonding time with this old geezer, my darling _kouhai_.” Kuroo snorted, reaching across the table and pushing the screen of Kei’s laptop forward a few inches. Not closed, but inhibiting Kei’s line of sight and his progress. “I’ll make time, don’t you worry about that.”

“I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” Kei deadpanned, lifting his screen back to a position where he could read it.

Kuroo huffed another laugh and shook his head, finally returning to his textbook. “Contrary to popular belief, I am an _astounding_ student, Tsukki. You’re free to come crying to me for help when you need it. I’m a kind, benevolent sort of senpai, you know.”

“Tell that to Lev.”

“Touché, Tsukki, touché.”

He opted not to mention the begging to get out of studying with Bokuto, though it was still in his mental file of blackmail material. And with Kei’s restraint, they both lapsed into silence again. Their silence was permeated by the sounds of the coffee shop around them, the keys of Kei’s laptop as he typed, and the scratch of Kuroo’s pencil or the sound of turning textbook pages, but hardly anything more. It was...nice, sometimes.

And he supposed it wasn’t all bad, studying with Kuroo. He wasn’t as big of a goofball as he sometimes projected, especially in the game, and it was a pleasant surprise to find out that he could, in fact, stay silent while studying. Kuroo was good at picking up subtle social cues, so Kei rarely actually got mad at him. Frustrated, yes, when Kuroo insisted on starting up a conversation when Kei was in a groove, but actually mad, no. It almost made him believe Kenma’s claim that Kuroo had been a shy kid.

 _Almost_.

In the course of his meetings with Kuroo, though, Kei had learned that it was so different, studying with actually intelligent people. In high school, he’d had Tadashi and Yachi to fall back to if he ever needed sane study partners, but he’d also had his fair share of helping the club manager tutor the idiot duo. _That_ had been real anger, because all they ever wanted to do was run back to the volleyball court. But Kuroo met him tit-for-tat, clever and quick and with a lot more brains than brawn.

At least he didn’t have to threaten Kuroo with bodily harm or with telling the team captains for him to simmer down and get serious. It just took one look, and Kuroo would laugh and go back to whatever he was working on.

Kei was all about the small blessings, these days.

They kept him sane and kept him from staring too long at Kuroo’s stupidly handsome face, and if anyone ever called him out Kei would deny it with a passion. There was no way he would ever let anyone, save maybe Tadashi, know about this.

“Y’know, Tsukki,” Kuroo mused, leaning back after a decent pause. Kei’d finished a paragraph and moved on to the next, so he lifted his eyes to his study partner as he continued, “we both came here a lot before we actually reconnected, or whatever. It was just a matter of time before we ran into each other, right?” Kuroo laughed, looking back down to Kei.

“With my luck, it would be because you spilled coffee. Probably on me.”

Kuroo snorted, not at all offended, and reached forward to pretend to knock Kei’s already empty cup over. “Of course, because I just have it out for you. But what a meet-cute, eh?”

His boisterous laugh wasn’t quite as obnoxious as Bokuto’s, so he didn’t draw a lot of attention. He did, however, close his eyes when he laughed like that, just for a few seconds, so Kei had time to avert his gaze back to his paper and pretend to be busy.

To think that his cheeks were warm because of the mention of a _meet-cute_.

 _This_ , Kei decided vehemently, _is a disaster._

“Anyway, Tsukki, let’s have a duel later, before we duo. I’m thinking that you can buy my coffee next time, if I win.”

“I get cake if I win,” Kei heaved a sigh, but Kuroo saw right through it and grinned toothily.

“Wishful thinking. How cute.”

Kei arched one brow, and reveled in the laughter that cascaded from Kuroo’s mouth. Later, he’d deny that his heart skipped a beat or three at the interaction, if anyone ever asked. But no one would have the reason to, because he was taking that knowledge to his grave.

And if he lost the duel later because Kuroo was still damn good at this game, even when under whatever stress his classes were giving him, Kei didn’t get too upset. The money he’d saved for the two weeks that Kuroo bought his coffee for him was more than enough to cover the one coffee owed from the stakes of the duel, after all.

* * *

 

The next duel they had, a few weeks later and the night after the test that felt like it had drained his soul out through his eyeballs, Kei actually claimed victory. Kuroo whined and called it a lucky shot, but agreed to be at Kei’s door in an hour with the pizza that had been on the line. Kei was down to ramen in his cupboard and didn’t get his stipend for a few days yet, so pizza on someone else’s buck didn’t sound too bad.

Kei didn’t mention that, despite having been in athletics his entire life, he couldn’t finish an entire pizza on his own, nor did he want to try. He could have leftovers for tomorrow if Kuroo ended up bringing his own pizza over along with Kei’s, or he could, maybe, share some of his hard-earned pizza with Kuroo.

It would be fun, probably, to let Kuroo in and eat a piece or two in front of him while he hunkered down at Kei’s kitchen table with biochem notes and textbook. Kuroo would probably try to ignore the pizza, if he was still hungry, and Kei would enjoy every moment of Kuroo’s suffering.

He’d let Kuroo continue to suffer a little, but after a few slices and a bit of reviewing their notes, he’d probably be kind enough to let the older man have some of the pizza.

After all, no matter the outcome of the duel after their duo, they’d planned to study a little at Kei’s studio apartment. They were going to go over the stuff from the test earlier to see if they could find where they’d missed points and how many. He didn’t know how long Kuroo was going to be around, but Kei decided he’d have his fun wherever and however he could get it.

It was always amusing to poke fun at Kuroo. He made great faces, after all, and during long study sessions it was always imperative to have a few minor distractions...but sometimes Kuroo was more than just a minor distraction, and Kei _hated_ that.

What Kei hated more was that it wasn’t even Kuroo’s fault–it was that Kei just couldn’t stop staring sometimes, like when Kuroo was studying seriously and his brows were slightly furrowed and he worried at his lower lip with his teeth, or when he ran a hand through his already unruly hair and made it worse. There was just something about a quiet, serene, sometimes slightly stressed Kuroo Tetsurou that forced Kei to accept that he was an attractive man.

He shook his head and groaned as he rubbed at his temples, and then a chime of his phone distracted him from his thoughts. Absently, he reached for his phone.

It wasn’t from Kuroo, as he’d half expected, but from Tadashi.

_From [Tadashi]: so i heard that you won today’s duel w/kuro. grats! what was on the line this time?_

Kei snorted softly, but tapped out his response pretty quickly.

_To [Tadashi]: Kuroo’s on his way over with the pizza he promised me._

Tadashi must have been pretty close to his phone, because his response came a bit quicker than even Kei had anticipated.

_From [Tadashi]: over?_

_From [Tadashi]: he comes over to your place, now???_

_From [Tadashi]: tsukki, when were you going to tell me that you’d made progress?? In a normal social context???_

_From [Tadashi]: especially with someone you actually /like/_

Oh. That’s right. He hadn’t mentioned it to Tadashi the other night when Kuroo had begged to come over in a minor panic to study for the test. It _had_ been pretty sudden, but considering that Kuroo sometimes didn’t study well in loud places, Bokuto’s visit from part of the volleyball team in their shared place probably wasn’t helping him much.

Kei’s apartment was always quiet. Until he’d heard Kuroo’s chuckles bouncing back at him, and then felt the absence of them when Kuroo was gone, Kei hadn’t ever really felt like he was alone in the city.

He also regretted that time he’d gone over to Kuroo and Bokuto’s shared apartment a week ago and ended up drinking with them, just a little. The texts he’d sent Tadashi were pretty incriminating, and if Kei had wanted to hide the resurgence of his old high school crush from his friends, he’d ruined his chances with hiding it from Tadashi. At least his best friend was pretty good about keeping things like that under wraps...until he could throw them back at people. Like he was doing now.

_To [Tadashi]: i will block your number_

_From [Tadashi]: i’m not sorry, and no you won’t, tsukki. You love me too much to block me =P_

_From [Tadashi]: plus, idk where you’d get all your social interaction if you weren’t talking to me. It’s not like you voluntarily talk to kageyama, or something._

Kei sighed again, fiddling with the phone in his hands.

_To [Tadashi]: this is just the second time he’s been over, don’t read into it too much._

_To [Tadashi]: we have class together, and we had a huge test today that no one acted like they were prepared for._

_To [Tadashi]: we agreed last week that after the test, we’d come here and review the stuff that was on it to see where we screwed up_

_To [Tadashi]: there? Happy? Stop projecting on me just bc you still haven’t asked Yacchan out, Tadashi._

Ha, take _that_.

Kei stared at the message for a few more moments, then groaned and sat his phone aside. He pushed himself up to glance around the apartment, and went to tidy his textbooks on the coffee table, where he’d been studying the night before even after he and Kuroo had both been cramming at the library until midnight.

His phone buzzed halfway through, and then again a little later, but he finished his task before he picked it back up.

The first was actually from Kuroo, this time.

_From [Kuroo]: just picked up the pizza and i’ll be there in 10_

He didn’t answer, flicking back to Tadashi’s messages.

_From [Tadashi]: here you go_

_From [Tadashi]: [image attached]_

_From [Tadashi]: now you can’t use projecting as an excuse, and i’m free to tell you that you’re in denial_

The screenshot Tadashi sent had been a brief conversation between he and Yachi Hitoka in which he had asked her on an actual date. It was a simple coffee date, in those terms exactly, but he had still asked–and Yacchan had still said yes.

_To [Tadashi]: I’m not denying anything._

_From [Tadashi]: only because you got tipsy and accidentally told me, tsukki. i know you._

_From [Tadashi]: but you’re also not acting on it, which is the real tragedy here._

Was it? Was not acting on his reemerging high school crush the real tragedy, when he was getting lectured by Yamaguchi Tadashi about social interactions?

He _really_ missed those days when the idiot duo still feared his wrath if they said something wrong, if only because it was around the time that Tadashi didn’t cross boundaries too. But Kei wouldn’t have changed that for anything, even if his best friend developing an even stronger spine meant that he took the opportunity to heckle. Since Tadashi was his best friend, it meant that he also knew how to get under Kei’s skin.

Instead of showing that, though, Kei answered simply.

_To [Tadashi]: The real tragedy here is Kuroo’s hair._

There was a knock on the door and Kei lifted himself to his feet on reflex, glancing at Tadashi’s last message before he put his phone away.

 _From [Tadashi]: sure, tsukki, keep telling yourself that_.

The phone disappeared into his pocket and he glanced arbitrarily through the peephole. Kei spied the unruly mess of hair he was expecting and could sense the impatience in the way it bounced, so he tried to push all of Tadashi’s teasing out of his head and unlocked the door.

“You took _forever_ ,” Kuroo groaned, slipping inside as soon as Kei had taken a step back to let him in. “I thought my arm was going to fall off, holding all this pizza!”

Kei lifted the single box from Kuroo’s arm as the older man worked on slipping his shoes off. He raised a brow at Kuroo for good measure, in disbelief and maybe a little disdain at his insinuation that the lone pizza was heavy, and carried the box to the small table.

“I thought you were an athlete.”

“Yeah, and that box contains the weight of a thousand sins in Coach’s eyes, Tsukki.” Kuroo sighed, shrugging out of his jacket. “Besides, I don’t actively play anymore, and neither do you.”

“Then our coaches will never know the true depth of our sins, I guess.”

Kuroo blinked at Kei in surprise, then started laughing as he sat his backpack down next to the leg of Kei’s small table. He was gentle, which usually meant that his laptop was stowed away in there somewhere, and then he flopped down into the seat, still laughing. He rolled his eyes at his upperclassman and pulled down a plate from the cabinet before grabbing a few bottles of water from his refrigerator and returning to the table.

“It’s not that funny.”

“You made a _joke_ , Tsukki, I’m allowed to laugh!” Kuroo snorted, taking the water Kei offered him and uncapping it to take a swig. “No matter how much I know about you, you still continue to surprise me!”

“Oh?” Kei drawled slowly as he took his seat, arching a brow at Kuroo across the table. “And what exactly do you know about me, Kuroo- _senpai_?”

“Well,” Kuroo began, and Kei inwardly cringed at the tone–it sounded like he was gearing up for a long list of things, after all–before Kuroo continued, “I know that you hate when people use too many emojis or use terrible grammar in texts or emails,” he had fingers up, and he moved one down to punctuate his statement, “that you’re not as mean as you pretend, and that you would kill a man for half a slice of strawberry shortcake.”

 _Touché_ , Kei decided, surprised. Maybe Kuroo did know a thing or two about him.

“I also know that you don’t like to take off your glasses around other people to clean them,” Kuroo’s voice was a little lower, almost tender, and Kei glanced up to him in surprise to find that his smile was just as soft, “and that you really only confide in Yamaguchi. You let him name your character when you first started the game, and there’s only a few people that you let get away with calling you Tsukki despite that. Plus, you like taking the moon imagery farther in FHQ than I would’ve guessed.”

His soft tone turned teasing, and Kei finally struggled for words to end his nonsense.

“I would kill a man over a single bite of strawberry shortcake,” he corrected, just to say Kuroo was wrong about something and to get him to stop. It could also serve to remind him that he still wasn’t forgiven for stealing a bite earlier in the week, right off of Kei’s plate while he was working on another paper. He felt like he’d had enough of research papers for the rest of his life, and it was only his first year of university.

Kuroo laughed, unabashed, and beamed at him with a shrug. “Well, I wasn’t wrong.”

Kei sighed.

“I guess not,” Kei reached for the pizza box and tugged out a slice, “but that’s irrelevant here. Let’s just get started on reviewing what was on the test.”

“Sure, sure,” Kuroo agreed easily, though Kei didn’t miss the glance at the pizza box and the careful way he averted his gaze again.

He could have some pizza, of course. But not until Kei had already eaten a few pieces and tried to put Kuroo’s smug grin and keen observations out of mind.

 

When Kei lost the next duel a few days later, he regretted being kind enough to share his spoils when Kuroo just laughed while he struggled through making _two_ sets of notecards for their next biochem test.

He regretted it just a _little_ less when Kuroo stopped working on his math homework an hour and a half later, pushed the stack of notecards that Kei had given him back across the table and took the study guide, sharpie, and stack of blank notecards from where Kei had left it while he got up to grab a fresh cup of coffee.

“You’ve done enough work, Tsukki,” he said cheerfully, flipping through the stack that was three-quarters done. “I’ll finish up here, you take the set you already made.”

Finishing what he’d started should have been a matter of pride, but Kei’s hand was cramped and Kuroo had already started, so he shrugged and mumbled, “Thanks, Kuroo.”

“Don’t mention it, Tsukki.”

Kei tried not to think too hard about the way Kuroo’s tone got soft, sometimes, in these moments in Kei’s apartment where it was just the two of them with soft instrumental music playing in the background to help with studying.

Kei _tried_ not to think about it, but he failed.

* * *

 

Kuroo groaned and stared, bleary-eyed, at the textbook in front of him.

Kei knew, because it was definitely the same look that he’d been giving the same page in the same textbook for the last twenty minutes.

“If _someone_ hadn’t had a crisis last Wednesday and went out to get _plastered_ on a weeknight, we might have been more prepared for this.” Kei pointed out. He sighed and put his pencil down, reaching up to rub at his temples. “At least it’s the last final, and it’s tomorrow.”

“I panic when finals are coming up, Tsukki, I _told_ you this,” Kuroo groused, running a hand through his already messy hair. “As long as I study, it’ll be kind of hard to fail all my tests, but the possibility is very real and terrifying, okay? Especially since Dad and Grandpa still haven’t forgiven me for quitting volleyball to focus on school, and then for changing majors after a year and a half. I don’t want them to feel validated thinking I’m a quitter and I just…” He trailed off and groaned again, dropping his forehead into his textbook. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” he whined.

“You need to sleep,” Kei observed, reaching over to run his hand through Kuroo’s outrageous fringe, completely on impulse. “When was the last time you got a full night’s sleep that didn’t end up with you hungover the next morning?”

“Probably two weeks ago,” Kuroo snorted into his textbook, slowly relaxing as Kei rubbed little circles on his scalp. Kei finally realized, vaguely, what he was doing and started to lift his hand, but Kuroo groaned. “Mmmmno, don’t stop that, feels good, Ts’ki…”

And well, Kuroo’s hair _was_ surprisingly soft, so Kei resigned himself to massaging his scalp. The price he had to pay, he supposed, for unconsciously reaching to do it in the first place. When it came to this particular upperclassman, though, Kei was embarrassingly weak. If it had been Bokuto, for instance, Kei would have stopped immediately–or rather, he never would have felt like touching his hair was a good idea in the first place, with how much product it took to keep it looking as though it belonged to an anime protagonist.

“You’re going to fall asleep.” Kei warned, watching the way Kuroo’s tension eased from his shoulders and he slumped a little closer to the table.

“Am not,” Kuroo retorted, though it came out more like _m’naht_ , so Kei just sighed even though he felt the corners of his mouth twitching up in a fond little grin.

In the last couple of months, it was safe to say that Kei and Kuroo had become a lot closer. Kei was comfortable with Kuroo in his space, which took remarkably little time, and sometimes he even voluntarily slipped into Kuroo’s space. They often brushed shoulders when they walked, but neither of them said anything about it. Kei felt a little guilty, sometimes, knowing that he was at least attracted to the other party on some level, but Kuroo never said anything and on occasion initiated by dropping an arm around Kei’s shoulder or wrapping his long fingers around Kei’s wrist to drag him to class or to the café or wherever he thought they needed to be.

And sometimes there were little things like this, where Kuroo completely let down his guard and Kei acted on impulse and their interaction could possibly be construed as something other than strictly platonic.

Kei relished the little moments like this, so even after he saw that Kuroo had dozed off completely, he continued to run his hands through unruly black hair for a few more minutes. He sighed and pulled his hand away after that and pushed himself to his feet, limbs heavy with post-studying exhaustion, and went to find one of his spare blankets to drape over Kuroo’s shoulders. He’d let him sleep a little bit while Kei found or made dinner and maybe made some tea, but then he’d wake Kuroo up so he could study and maybe eat something.

It all felt a lot more domestic than Kei had expected from falling in with Kuroo, and while he had the odd complaint about whatever this arrangement was, he still kind of wanted more. Or everything, even.

Those were thoughts to be kept within the confines of his own mind, however, and so they bounced around up there as he pushed himself away from his seat at the table. Kei took a moment to glance in his refrigerator, but after a few minutes he made his way to the door and pulled his shoes on before he shrugged into his jacket. With one more glance at Kuroo, still snoring softly on his textbook, Kei snorted, grabbed his keys, and slipped out into the hall. He pulled the headphones from his neck, long forgotten in his studying and talking to Kuroo, back over his head.

There was a konbini just down the street, and he didn’t really feel like cooking tonight. Kei was already kind of tired from studying and cooking took energy. And it would wake up Kuroo, not that he really cared one way or the other about that.

The walk to the konbini was short and punctuated only by the music in his ears, and he only lowered them when he stepped into the store. At the tired greeting of the cashier, he just nodded once before he made his way to the pre-made bentos, and skimmed the options. He opted to pick up a few onigiri instead, and when he made it up to the counter, he asked for two curry buns.

He paid quickly and pulled his headphones back up on his way out the door, his sack hanging easily from one hand, and tried not to think about how it was just a little heavier than it would normally be if he was going on a snack run.

Kei snorted again when Kuroo didn’t move from his spot on his textbook when he returned. He even snapped the door closed with a little more force than necessary, and Kuroo only groaned and rolled his head to the other side. He focused on taking his shoes off at the door, and then he stepped into his apartment and left the sack in the middle of the table, moving to get himself more water.

Kuroo still didn’t wake up.

“Oi, Kuroo, naptime’s over,” Kei settled back down across from the older student, reaching into the bag and taking an onigiri and bun for himself.

“Hmmm? ‘M’not nappin’, Ts’ki,” he grumbled, his intention barely intelligible.

“Don’t blame me when you fail the final because you didn’t study enough, then.”

That jolted Kuroo up a little, and the textbook page stuck to his cheek momentarily as he blinked. When he spotted the way Kei was eyeing him, a mixture of distaste and amusement, he detached himself from the book and sat up completely with a groan. Kuroo dragged one hand down his face, slowly, and blinked blearily back down at the textbook.

“How long?” he managed, running a hand distractedly through his hair.

“Maybe twenty minutes,” Kei answered, unwrapping his onigiri. “I just went to the konbini and back. Let’s get back to studying, now that you’re done with your nap.”

Kuroo blinked again, then chuckled. His throat was a little rough from his short nap. “Yeah, let’s.” He agreed easily, and picked his pencil back up. Kei eyed him for a moment, before lifting his onigiri in one hand and his pencil in another.

“If you want something to eat, there’s more in the bag,” he said, reading the next question on his study guide. “If you don’t want anything, I’ll just put it in the fridge and have it tomorrow.”

He let out an even softer chuckle, but then put his pencil back down and said, “Thanks, Tsukki,” as he reached for the sack at the center of the table, “don’t mind if I do, then.”

Kei didn’t have any left for the next day, but that didn't bother him quite as much as he'd expected.

 

It turned out that the biochem final was the type that neither of them had felt wholly prepared for going into and had left feeling marginally better about their chances. Kuroo finished first and had waited at the campus coffeeshop for Kei to arrive, and he showed up not even ten minutes later.

“I feel like my brain has been squeezed dry,” Kuroo complained instantly as Kei entered the shop, and he pushed a cup across the table towards him. Kei took the seat and reached for the cup.

“No, that's just your hair trying to siphon out the rest of what few brain cells you had.”

He hid his smirk behind the drink, and Kuroo let out a long whine. “Tsukkiiii, don’t be mean to me, I’m suffering.”

“I just took the same exam,” Kei pointed out, slipping his notes out of his bag. “And, if I recall correctly, we were going to review again, just to have some idea what we scored.”

“Do we have to?” he groaned as he dropped his head to rest on his arms on the table.

Kei didn’t answer with words, but flipped a few pages to the content that had been on the exam and waited expectantly for Kuroo to pick his head up and do the same. After a lot of grumbling, he did sit up and started to rummage through the messy stack of papers next to him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get how you are. Stingy, stingy.”

“So I’ve heard.” Hinata had called him _Stingyshima_ enough times that it didn’t even faze him anymore. “So on the second page of the exam…”

* * *

 

“ _Thanks for joining us, Kuro!_ ” Hinata had long since adopted Bokuto and Kenma’s casual way of calling Kuroo’s name, and his voice was just as loud and unnecessarily cheerful as usual. “Still can’t believe it was Grumpyshima that convinced you to join in, though!”

Kei _really_ missed those days when Hinata was still afraid of him, though sometimes more than others. Today was one of those days, it seemed.

“ _You do realize that they’re friends, don’t you, Shouyou?_ ” Tadashi’s voice intervened, though his tone didn’t do a good job of hiding his amusement. Kei wondered if he should put Tadashi back on the list of his least favorite people temporarily.

“ _Whaaa…?_ ”

“ _Tsukishima has friends that aren’t you_?” Kageyama sounded completely unconvinced, as if he was positive that Tadashi was Kei’s only friend. He tried to ignore the soft snickers coming from the table behind him, where Kuroo was set up with his laptop.

“Not anymore,” Kei announced simply. Tadashi started to snicker openly, and Kuroo’s rose to a chuckle.

“ _Wait,_ we’re _friends, Stingyshima_!” Hinata gasped suddenly, as if just remembering that fact. Kei clicked his tongue in distaste.

“Tadashi’s my only friend.” He used his best monotone, arching an eyebrow at Kuroo when he wouldn’t stop laughing at him in the background. It was only a matter of time, probably, before the dumbass duo finally realized that Kuroo was, in fact, sitting in the same room as Kei. Tadashi had picked up on it early, but the others...not so much.

 _“No, no, we’re friends, we’re friends! Aren’t we friends, Tobio?!_ ”

“ _How should I know if you’re friends with him?_ ” Kageyama asked blankly, sounding completely uninterested.

“ _No, Bakageyama, I mean that we’re both his friends! You’re his friend too!_ We’re _your friends, Tsukishimaaaa!_ ”

“‘ _We’re your friends_!’” Kuroo imitated in a burst of laughter, slapping the table next to his laptop. “Haha, that was _great_!”

“ _Ehhh, Kuro, this is serious! What if Tsukishima believes he doesn’t have any friends? Tsukishima, I’m serious, we’re really all your friends! We’re friends, okay!_ ”

Tadashi’s snickers rose to full out laughter as well, and he fought to speak through it. “ _Aha, give it a rest, Shouyou! If Tsukki says he doesn’t have any other friends, he’s not going to change his tune that easily_!”

“ _Hey, Kuroo, why are you echoing?”_

There it was, and Kageyama of all people. Kuroo’s laughter reached howling pitch and Kei wanted to strangle him, and Tadashi choked on his own laugh and started to cough.

_I’m surrounded by idiots._

“I–haha, I can’t believe you still didn’t _notice_!” Kuroo snorted. He inhaled a few times, big gasping breaths that Kei thought probably did more harm than good for a while, before he managed to keep his voice level. “Tsukki would be echoing too, if I didn’t wear a headset instead of having a standing mic like he does!”

“ _What does that mean_?” Kageyama asked, and Tadashi wheezed. Kei groaned.

“Figure it out on your own.” Kei muttered, clicking through his loot list.

“ _Tsukki, that’s mean_ ,” Tadashi managed, “ _can’t you just tell your_ friends _?_ ”

Kuroo laughed again, loudly, and Hinata gasped. _There it is_.

“ _Kuro, are you at Tsukishima’s place? Tsukishima, is he with you?!_ ”

“Congratulations,” Kuroo wheezed this time, while Tadashi practically wailed in the background. “You caught me.”

“ _Eeeeeeh?!_ ”

“ _Wait, what?_ ” Kageyama seemed shocked. Of course. “ _Are you really at Tsukishima’s? He has people come over?_ ”

“ _Bakageyama, don’t say it like that, it’s rude!_ ”

“Since when do you care about _rude_?” Kei drawled a little at Hinata’s exclamation, rolling his eyes. Though, to be fair, Hinata was always more concerned on that front than Kageyama, and any offense given by him was just through lack of situational awareness. Sometimes Kageyama just wanted to be a dick. “Anyway, we’re finished with the dungeon and I’ve got better things to do.”

With that, Kei exited the group chat amidst delayed protests from Hinata and Tadashi. Tadashi immediately sent him a private message that told him that now _he_ was the one being rude, and Kei studiously ignored it as Kuroo laughed and said his own farewells to the other three. Kei rotated his chair and watched Kuroo snicker, say goodbye again, and then finally he moved to take off his headset and turned back to Kei with a grin stretched impossibly wide across his cheeks.

“How’s the world of having only one friend treating you now, Tsukki?” he teased.

“Who were you, again?” he shot back as he arched a single brow at Kuroo.

“Touché,” he snorted, leaning back in his chair and stretching. After a long moment, Kuroo finished his stretch and faced Kei completely once more. “We still on for our last duel of the semester at eight?”

Kei glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen– _7:56_ –and felt the excitement rise up. His duels with Kuroo were one of the highlights of his days, whenever they happened, though he’d never admit that aloud. Instead, he pretended to think about it for a few moments, and then tilted his head back down, almost imperiously, to meet Kuroo’s startlingly earnest gaze.

“What are the stakes?”

“Hmm,” Kuroo was pretending, too, but the way his eyes flicked back to Kei’s, with determination and certainty, he knew that Kuroo already had an idea. He just had to wait for Kuroo to spit it out. He could do with some pizza or something for the victory he was determined would be his. “Well, how about, if I win…”

He trailed off, and the silence dragged on for several long moments until Kei prompted him to continue.

“If you win…?”

Kuroo looked up at the ceiling and hummed for a minute, then slowly lowered his gaze to meet Kei’s, and his chest tightened in that instant. The look in Kuroo’s eyes was different, and Kei’s mind went immediately into overdrive in an attempt to figure out just what it was. His expression had changed, something more serious than before but not necessarily in a bad way. And then Kuroo finally spoke.

“If I win...I’m going to kiss you, Tsukki.”

 _Kiss_ …?

Kei blinked, and then felt his face slowly start to heat up.

It took Kei several long moments to realize that he should probably respond, and he might not have even realized that much if he hadn’t seen the way that Kuroo’s expression flickered, slightly, to reflect a hint of doubt. After that, it took more effort than it should have not to blurt out that it was fine either way, regardless of the stakes.

 _Oh,_ he thought vaguely, _I want him to kiss me, then._

He tried to banish the thought of throwing their duel just to get a kiss from Kuroo, though it was disturbingly persistent. Kei knew he’d never actually be able to pull his punches in their match, though, so the thought was finally pushed aside.

“Oh?” he managed, feigning indifference. “And if I win?”

Kuroo’s eyes flicked across Kei’s face once, then again, before a more assured smirk slipped across his features. _That_ was an expression that Kei found familiar, from various other duel challenges or from smaller quizzes in biochem.

“Then I’m gonna kiss you, anyway.”

His pulse sounded loudly in his ears, and Kei swallowed as slowly as he could and hoped Kuroo didn’t see it. He’d never let Kei live that down, if he did. So instead, Kei cast around in his mind for something else to say, a clever quip or comeback.

Finally, he arched a brow to buy more time and asked, “Is that so? And what makes you think that’s some sort of prize rather than a punishment?”

The other man’s expression faltered again, dissolving momentarily into an unsure expression Kei didn’t particularly like seeing on his face, but then a smirk slowly spread across Kuroo’s features.

“You haven’t kicked me out yet, have you?”

 _Touché,_ Kei thought, but he just scoffed and turned his chair around, facing his computer instead of the man at his kitchen table. His ears and the back of his neck were burning, and Kuroo had probably noticed if his breathless chuckle was anything to go by. Kei resolved to ignore him, at least until the end of their duel, and glanced at the time. One minute until their regularly scheduled duel.

He heard Kuroo shuffling around his laptop, and just before he could send the duel request, the dialog box popped up on his screen.

_Kuronya has challenged you to a duel!_

_Accept or Decline_?

He toyed, momentarily, with declining it to tease Kuroo, but decided against it. As soon as he accepted the duel, the magic boundaries rose around them and a countdown started on the screen.

“Bring it on, Tsukki,” Kuroo said behind him, and Kei clicked his tongue.

“You’re going down, _senpai_.”

The timer ran down, and Kei quickly pressed the first key as soon as the duel began, activating a defensive buff before hitting another to increase his dodge rating. After that, and a few hefty hits from Kuronya’s bladed mace, Tsukki finally made his first physical attack. His first buff, _Starshine_ , had a small damage over time effect–one percent of the damage Kei took while it was active was returned to the attackers once every five seconds, as a base stat, but Kei had enhanced the skill twice so it now returned five percent.

Kuronya had a skill similar to that, though, and Kei was taking some small damage upon each hit he dealt, too. They weren’t really a lot to start with, but near the end of the match those few hundred hit points could make all the difference.

When Kei’s next attack did only about ninety percent of the expected damage, he glanced to the icons next to Kuronya’s stats and saw the platinum shield icon that meant his passive _Stalwart_ buff had kicked in. Since he’d upgraded it, it kicked in whenever he was actively taking damage and strengthened when his health fell in the red. Since they were both still around sixty percent health it wasn’t that strong yet, but it would definitely hinder things when they got down to the final legs of the duel. Kei clicked his tongue, and Kuroo let out an amused chuckle from behind him. The back of his neck prickled, but Kei dutifully ignored it.

He used his weapons enchantment, _Divinity_ , and raised his output again. This time he heard Kuroo click his tongue in agitation and Kei smirked to himself.

“How’re you holding up, _Kuronya_?” he couldn’t help but tease, pressing his 6 key for another ability-based attack.

“Just peachy, _Tsukki_ ,” he quipped back, and Kei did his best not to bite his tongue when Kuroo activated Kuronya’s _Shacklefence_ , a defensive ability that temporarily slowed or paralyzed his opponents and their movements. “You’re looking a little sluggish on your end, though.”

“Everyone deserves a break every now and then,” Kei offered simply, buying time while he examined his options. His health was dropping to about forty percent, while Kuronya’s was still just above half. Unacceptable. As soon as _Shacklefence_ wore off, after 8 seconds, Kei activated his _Lunar Eclipse_ , to temporarily steal some of Kuronya’s strength to enhance his own. On top of that, he pressed the 0 key for his _Divine Grace_ , which reduced mana costs for any of his skills.

“ _Shit_ ,” he heard Kuroo mutter, and the sound of a flurry of keys being pressed and the clicking of their mice filled the tense silence. Kei grinned as he chunked Kuronya’s health down to about thirty percent.

The moment of banter ended as they took their health down into the red zone of twenty-five percent and below. Kei’s _Moonlight_ buff only did so much, even with his upgrades, since one of their rules for duels was that they couldn’t use potions. At least, now that it was level 3, it did a tiny bit of healing on its own, but it wasn’t anything substantial. And Kuroo had activated his ability that gave him three percent of the damage he took back as health, so that put Kei had a slight disadvantage. That’s where his legendary circlet from the first raid they’d done together came in handy, because one of its abilities was enhancing healing from buffs and abilities.

 _Moonlight_ ’s healing, which was a heal of about five percent of the damage he took every five seconds, was increased to about seven percent, which turned his disadvantage in healing around, just slightly.

It got dicey, then.

Kuronya’s next ability, _Staggering Force_ , dealt a hefty blow to Tsukki’s hit points and sent him stumbling backwards. He used the chance to use the Sentinel class’s mid-range abilities to hold Tsukki in place and deal some damage. Kei cursed softly under his breath, but as soon as the temporary binding and paralysis wore off, he used his weapon-specific _Charge_ ability.

Tsukki leapt, rearing his spear back, and Kuronya readied himself for the hit. Belatedly, Kei realized that this could very well be the defining moment for this duel, and his pulse resounded in his ears. His _Divinity_ weapons buff was off cooldown, and it was an instant, so he activated it mid-charge.

Kuronya’s _Shield Wall_ was on cooldown from Kei’s last barrage, with about two seconds left. If Tsukki’s attack landed first…

He held his breath, watching the cooldown timer on Kuronya’s abilities. He was in standard defensive stance, but without the extra defense boost from his ability, Tsukki’s attack with its weapon enhancement should be just enough to take him out. He heard Kuroo muttering under his breath, a mantra of, _“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon!_ ” but after what seemed like the longest moment of Kei’s entire gaming career, Tsukki’s attack struck a tenth of a second before _Shield Wall_ ’s cooldown ended.

 _Tsukki is the Winner_!

Kei breathed out slowly, watching the fireworks on screen while Kuronya fell to his knees and slammed his fist on the ground in the defeat emote. Tsukki raised his spear in the air in triumph, and everything started rushing back to him, even though they’d never been far from his mind in the first place.

The stakes and his prize. _Kuroo_ , in the same room, just behind him.

He heard Kuroo groan and finally admit, “Ugh, you got me!” he followed it with a laugh and, “Nice kill, Tsukki!”

Kei couldn’t help the snort that escaped. “This isn’t volleyball, Kuroo.”

“Eh, but it’s still a match so it works, right?” he could hear the shrug in Kuroo’s tone. “Anyway, isn’t it about time for the victor to come claim his prize?”

 _Ba-bump_. Kei’s pulse quickened in his ears, though he wasn’t prepared to admit that Kuroo was the cause. Instead, he slowly spun his chair around to face Kuroo, leaning one elbow on the arm as he rested his chin in his hand.

“I thought the prize was supposed to come to me?” he drawled. He didn’t have time to be surprised at his own tone with the way that Kuroo’s jaw slackened, just a little, with his own surprise. The expression Kuroo wore changed quickly, as it had numerous times tonight, into a smirk and he pushed himself to his feet. He took three steps to where Kei sat, and Kei straightened slightly before Kuroo leaned down with his hands on both armrests.

“As the winner wishes,” he quipped, voice low and face close enough that Kei felt the rush of exhaled air against his cheek, and then Kuroo used one hand to tilt Kei’s chin up. Kei’s breath tumbled from his lips in a soft, nervous exhale, and Kuroo hesitated for a moment. “Last chance to say no,” he murmured, eyes flicking back to Kei’s.

“I didn’t kick you out, remember?” Kei shot back, though his tone was a lot more breathless than he’d _ever_ admit.

The chuckle that followed filled the inches between them only for a moment before Kuroo pressed forward and fulfilled his end of their bargain. Kei’s hands rose of their own accord to rest at Kuroo’s hips, tangled loosely in the hem of his shirt, and he pressed back without any resistance.

When Kuroo pulled back, Kei didn’t let go of his shirt for a long moment. His thought process was admittedly slower than he’d expected, and after a moment he finally relaxed his grip but left his hands where they were. Kuroo’s expression softened into a lazy grin, and Kei scowled at him.

“What?”

“You’re being cute, Tsukki.”

Kei turned his head and clicked his tongue and Kuroo chuckled at it as he finally straightened up and Kei’s hands fell from his waist.

“Hey, Tsukki.”

Kei sighed and turned back to Kuroo. The grin this time was more earnest, and Kei arched a brow at him questioningly. The gesture was understood as _go ahead_ , and so Kuroo did, catching Kei’s hand in his own and tangling their fingers together, long and callused from years of gaming and volleyball.

“Can I take you out tomorrow night? Dinner, a movie, coffee, your choice. Just let me take you out.”

“You know I’d never turn down free coffee,” Kei responded dryly, but he squeezed Kuroo’s hand back and watched his smile grow. “What if I said I wanted all three, though?”

“I’m a poor man, Tsukki, but I’d figure it out somehow.”

He snorted, reaching up with his free hand to adjust his glasses. “Then I’ll just have to cover dinner, and you can cover the rest.”

Kuroo laughed, breathless and excited. “It’s a date, then.”

After a moment, Kei hummed and answered simply, “Yeah.”

* * *

 

_From [Hinata]: T SUJKISAHIMA_

_From [Hinata]: TSUKKISHMA_

_From [Hinata]: T S U K I S H I M A_

_From [Hinata]: IS IT TRU UR GOIN ON A D A T E_

_From [Hinata]: WITH K U R O ?!_

_From [Hinata]: OUR LITTLE TSUKKI’S ALL GROWN UP AND GOING ON DATES I HAVE TO TELL TADASHI_

_From [Hinata]: oh wait does he already kno???_

A different conversation popped up in the middle of Hinata’s rant with just one single message.

_From [Kageyama]: don’t screw it up with him, it’s hard to find people that like you._

And then, a third conversation blew up his phone some more.

_From [Tadashi]: I KNEW IT._

_From [Tadashi]: [sent image]_

_From [Tadashi]: kuroo just posted it on instagram!!! I can’t believe you a) let him take a picture of you and b) are GOING ON A DATE WITH HIM WITHOUT TELLING ME_

_From [Tadashi]: have my best friend privileges been revoked?????_

_From [Tadashi]: shouyou won’t stop texting so I bet he’s spamming you, too. I’ll try to get him to stop, so please give me my bestie privilege back, okay?_

_From [Tadashi]: oh, and glhf, i guess? ;)_

Kei looked at the influx of messages as they waited to be seated at the restaurant Kuroo had picked, and then silenced his phone.

“Why’d you have to post that picture?” he groused, putting his phone away. Kuroo snorted, and then slipped his fingers in between Kei’s in a placating gesture.

“I managed to get _the_ Tsukishima Kei to go on a date with me. Of course I’m going to brag about it.”

Kei rolled his eyes and squeezed Kuroo’s fingers back. “I could still cancel and go home.”

He chuckled and bumped their shoulders together. “Yeah, but you won’t.”

 _No_ , Kei thought to himself as he nudged Kuroo back, _I won’t_.

 

_From [Akaashi Keiji]: Congratulations. It’s about time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I have a soft spot for online gaming aus my dudes.
> 
> The link to the wonderful art by [0rchidd](https://0rchiddart.tumblr.com/) is right [HERE](https://0rchiddart.tumblr.com/post/181176412424/my-first-completed-piece-for-the-2018-haikyuu) so please, please, PLEASE check back for that because every time I look at it I want to cry tears of joy. It's beautiful, guys. But it is related to the still in-progress chapter 3, so I'll for sure link it again when part 3 goes up!
> 
> As always, hit me up on my HQ sideblog at [karasun013](https://karasun013.tumblr.com/) or my multifandom main/personal at [panda013](https://panda013.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I'm also found on Twitter as @apanda013, considering current Tumblr situations.


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